Ocean Filibuster

Overview

Ocean Filibuster is a performance that explores the intimate, critical relationship between humans and the ocean. It began as a commission from the American Repertory Theater in partnership with the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE), part of a project to bring science and environmental issues to the stage. This opportunity allowed me to extend the work of my previous durational performance, How to Build a Forest, which explored and articulated the interplay between ecosystems and human systems. My research at Harvard focused on ways to “know” the Ocean as a character and was fueled by questions of how the human/ocean connection can be perceived and performed.

After connecting with oceanographers at HUCE, I became deeply interested in and concerned with the Ocean as a “human enabler,” especially when it comes to the carbon cycle. We rely on ocean photosynthesis to create half the air we breathe, yet we increasingly inhibit the ocean’s ability to make this air by overloading it with carbon. Its scale enables it to keep taking that carbon in, protecting us from feeling the negative impact of our actions and allowing us to continue with our destructive behavior. But how much can the Ocean take? What if the Ocean started speaking out–and spoke and spoke and spoke until it was heard?

“This is an immersive musical theater experience that does more than entrance — it jars our consciences about what is happening to our environment. It is a testament to the show’s power that this debate is so difficult to shrug off.”

Mark Favermann, The Arts Fuse

Creative Team

Created by PearlDamour

Director Katie Pearl
Writer Lisa D’Amour
Sound Composition Sxip Shirey
Scenic Design Jian Jung with Jeff Becker and Nate Lemoine
Sound Design Andrew Lynch with Sxip Shirey
Lighting Design Thomas Dunn with Evan Spigelman
Projection Design Stivo Arnoczy with original design by Tal Yarden
Performers Jenn Kidwell and Evan Spigelman with local ensembles

Performance Description

Ocean Filibuster takes place in a future Global Senate, where the Ocean itself faces off against the Senate Leader “Mr. Majority,” who is intent on shrinking the ocean down and developing the land left behind. The characters of the Ocean and Mr. Majority, both played by a single actor, use songs, science, and video projection to make their arguments; Mr. Majority shows us flashy marketing videos while the Ocean uses projection to transform the senate, immersing us in deep-water seascapes. At intermission, the audience leaves their seats to explore a series of interactive stations that translate complex Oceanic processes into something relational, filled with fact, humor, wonder, and whimsy.

Community Engagement

Ocean Filibuster has built significant community engagement into its touring structure. For detailed descriptions, please see the documents Interactive Intermission/Local Collaborations and Extended Community Engagements. For more information and to view educational resources tied to each community we visit, go to the Ocean Filibuster project website (www.oceanfilibuster.com).

Video Links

Representative Full Show (1 hr 24 min)

American Repertory Theater Audience Response (1 min)

Live Arts Miami Audience Testimonials (1 min)

WATCH HERE: Ocean Filibuster was featured in Guggenheim's Works and Process Series, June 8, 2020

Funders

Ocean Filibuster is supported by The New England Foundation for the Arts National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and additional support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; The Distracted Globe Foundation; New York State Council on the Arts; Wesleyan University; Alternate Roots; the Network of Ensemble Theaters and dozens of Kickstarter donors.

Representative Venues

Adrienne Arsht Theater, Miami. FL

Kingsbury Hall, Salt Lake City, UT

American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, MA

Supertrees - Pin Lim, Forest Photography University of Houston 2022.jpeg

TImeIntro2 - Pin Lim, Forest Photography University of Houston 2022.jpeg

Sample Programs

For complete programs click here: American Repertory Theater, Duke Arts, Utah Presents

Interactive Intermission + LOCAL COLLABORATIONS

Interactive Intermission

During Ocean Filibuster’s interactive intermission, audiences visit “mini-labs”—whimsical, participatory, informative experiences that bring aspects of the Ocean even closer. Five mini-labs tour with the show.

Video

Representative interactive intermission, University of Houston (video, 1.33 min)

Mind

An ocean ensemble creature temporarily redistributes your brain to different parts of your body so you can “think” like an octopus, a school of fish, and other deep-sea creatures.

Body

An ocean ensemble creature makes your portrait using only the elements that make up your body. Then, it compares your portrait to a portrait of the ocean.

See how related you are?

Community

Use our “Deep Wonder” Augmented Reality App on an iPad or your phone to visit the ocean floor, where you can see a Whale Fall and Hydrothermal Vent and the communities they support.

(Scan the QR code if you’d like to try out the Deep Wonder experience yourself in your own home.)

Thermohaline Rave

Go behind the “Global Federation of Humans on Earth” chambers and dance to the ever-flowing beat of the ocean’s thermohaline current. Two ocean ensemble creatures will show you all the moves.

Selfie / Info

Celebrate local possibilities by taking your picture in front of a wall of regional resources, volunteer opportunities, and environmental hashtags.

Local Collaborations

Ocean Filibuster intermissions also include a sixth mini-lab, created in collaboration with local environmental activists and organizational partners at each tour stop. In this way, we leverage Ocean Filibuster’s energy and resources to bolster awareness of issues of local concern and support the efforts of local groups by connecting audiences directly to their work in exciting and unconventional ways.

The Process

I meet with local environmental activist groups to learn about the issues they are addressing. The organizations discover shared goals, interests, and inflection points in group conversations. I then lead a communal brainstorm to home in on a specific focus. My team and I go away to develop several beginning ideas for the mini-lab and then present them to partners. Based on partner feedback, PearlDamour refines the idea until it is finalized. Together, we move on to the last step: figuring out the “how” of actualization. Often this happens with a combination of local teams (frequently students) collaborating with the presenter, while I consult from afar..

Here are brief snapshots of the representative results. For more details, please visit the Interactive Intermission page on the Ocean Filibuster website.

AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER: Mama Cod Drag Show

Partner: Conservation Law Foundation

Let’s get BOFFFF! Meet Mama Cod, a Big Old Fat Fertile Female Fish, who schools the audience on best practices when fishing and eating Cod. In the middle of her act, she gets people to use their phones to sign a petition to protect “Cashes Ledge,” an important breeding ground for BOFFF’S like her off the Atlantic coast. (Note: “BOFFFF” is a scientific term.)

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY: River Relief and Ocean Immersion

Partners: Connecticut River Conservancy, Connecticut Coastal Conservation Districts, Wesleyan Theater Department

Clean the Cog! Two local rivers, one covered in invasive plant species and one weighed down by trash and bacteria, need our help. Can the Connecticut River get some relief by teaching audiences to pull invasive water chestnuts out of their body? Can the Coginchaug River convince audiences to pluck off the trash, algae, and bacteria choking it? As audiences lend a hand, the rivers tell us how storm run-off, trash, and invasive plant species are harming the Connecticut River network.

Additionally, Wesleyan Theater Professor Courtney Gaston worked with design students to create a media-driven immersive experience with audiences walking through healthy and dying coral reefs, picking up trash. When recycled at the end, the trash immediately re-entered the coral reef environment, calling into question the efficacy of our recycling systems.

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON: Blue Crab Labyrinth

Partners: Galveston Bay Foundation, H.A.R.C., UH Theater Education Class, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Bayou City Waterkeeper and Another Gulf is Possible

Help a baby crab find its way home! An egret plucks a blue crab from Galveston Bay and drops it in a parking lot near downtown Houston. Can it find its way home through bayous, a shipping channel, trash, noise pollution, and nurdles? UH students worked with Sascha Francis of the Galveston Bay Foundation to transform hallways and classrooms into an epic, interactive journey that helped audiences understand the interconnected waterways of Houston and the human-made threats to its ecosystems.

LIVE ARTS MIAMI: The Coral Reef “Thrive or Die” Game

Partners: Rescue a Reef, Clean Miami Beach, and the Ocean Conservancy in collaboration with the Maker’s Lab at Miami Dade College

Audiences gather around a coral reef made from 3D-printed corals, crocheted corals, and other handmade objects to play a game of chance and choice that connects on-land actions with off-shore impact. Are you a friend or foe? Will the reef thrive or die?

UTAH PRESENTS: Save Our Great Salt Lake

Partners: Save Our Great Salt Lake and Brolly Arts

Save Our Great Salt Lake, a local nonprofit, took over the lobby to reprise a song and puppetry parade. Originally created for its vigil for the Great Salt Lake during a recent state legislative session, the parade showcased puppets of species that are part of the lake's ecosystem. They also taught the audience how to fold pelican puppets out of paper in a fanciful, futile effort to repopulate declining pelican populations. Nearby, Brolly Arts screened their short film Illusion of Abundance, sharing Indigenous perspectives on the Great Salt Lake. Before the show, Save our Great Salt Lake members greeted the audience with water flags and banners.

CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER, NEW ORLEANS: What the Gulf Needs Now

Partners: Water Map New Orleans / Bulbancha, New Orleans Center for the Gulf South and Mélange Dance, Glass Roots/Glass Half Full, Atelier de la Nature, and Sustaining All Life.

Five different local environmental organizations each created an interactive experience to highlight a different aspect of the New Orleans environmental activist landscape. There was a treasure trove of deep-water Gulf fish, a listening session on climate grief, a Deep Gulf Dance Party with Gulf sea creatures, a movement experience that turned the audience into water, and a drawing exercise about recycling glass into sand.

Extended Community Engagement

A significant aspect of Ocean Filibuster is its extended engagement with the communities it visits.

Building on strategies I developed in my previous project Milton, I collaborate with presenting partners to develop an ecosystem of interconnected events around the show, motored by local concerns and framed by PearlDamour’s residency. I am passionate about creating opportunities for artists, students, scientists, activists, and scholars to come together in various combinations around the various themes of Ocean Filibuster; these events may include classroom visits and semester-long projects with students, “pop up” events in the weeks leading up to the show, interdisciplinary panels and discussions, and volunteer opportunities.

Local Ensembles

While different at each tour stop, my engagement always begins with our local mini-lab collaboration (previously described) and significant time spent with local performers who become the “Ocean Ensemble” in the piece. Depending on the venue, these performers might be professionals or students at our presenting institution. I typically initiate this work over Zoom and continue in person. My goal is not just to “rehearse them in” but to form a temporary community: inviting them into the show’s deeper content, training them in our company ethics, and building meaningful shared ground with the show’s traveling team.

Introducing our Duke Ensemble to their headdresses

Learning to move with the Ocean Robes

Rehearsing at Wesleyan

Meet the Wesleyan student ensemble in this article from Wesleyan’s College of the Environment.

Extended Engagement Examples

Working with artists, educators, and activists in our host communities grounds Ocean Filibuster and its message in the place and with the people it encounters. Here are some of the ways we extended the show into community.

Duke University, Durham NC: Making Jellyfish — September 2023

A local artist brought students together to create jellyfish out of old nets left as debris by local fisheries. Installed in the show’s lobby, the jellyfish hung from the ceiling as an overhead path for audiences to follow as they entered the theater.

Wesleyan University, Middletown CT: Art and Action Series — March-April 2023

In partnership with the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan, I conceived and produced a semester-long interdisciplinary, cross-campus series bringing together art and activism, science, singing, and storytelling.

Further description of Art and Action events:

Art and Policy Salon: Acting on Climate Change

Artists help us imagine possible futures. How can they affect actual change? This panel brought together professors and local artists/activists to consider both actual and possible relationships between Art and Action. With Geologist Raquel Bryant (Wesleyan Assistant Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences), local Environmental Justice specialist Alex Rodriguez (Save the Sound), and award-winning community muralist Dr. Kat Owens. Strategic Advisor and Wesleyan alumni Michael Feldman served as moderator. Ring Family Hall, Wesleyan University, Mar 28, 2023

Sea Creature Sewing: Entangled and Ingested

Researcher and artist Dr. Kat Owens works with communities to create life-sized murals of sea animals harmed by plastic pollution. Wesleyan and Middletown community members spent an afternoon helping Dr. Owens sew new ocean murals from discarded plastic. Usdan Lawn, Wesleyan University, April 14, 2023

Talking Out Ocean Filibuster: Humans viz. Ocean

Wesleyan Professors Elise Springer (Philosophy) and Joey Weiss (Anthropology), along with the student cast, anchored a conversation about how Human perceptions of the Ocean impact our living experience on Earth. This was held with an Environment-related Artist Book open house, co-curated with Wesleyan’s special collections librarian. Develin Room, Olin Library, Wesleyan University, April 6, 2023

Fireside Ocean Jam: Songs and Storytelling about the Ocean

Students, faculty, and staff shared songs and stories about the Ocean around a pop-up firepit on the Center for the Arts Green, employing memory and personal experience to enliven the community’s awareness of their own relationship to the ocean. Co-hosted with Asst. Professor Raquel Bryant (E&ES), Center for the Arts Green, Wesleyan University, April 21, 2023.

Click an image above to see a larger version of each poster.

Sewing Sea Creatures with Dr. Kat Owens Photo credit: Katie Pearl

New Orleans/Bulbancha: Gulf South Climate Justice Artist & Cultural Organizer Convening — June 2023

The Gulf South Climate Justice Artist and Cultural Organizer Convening was organized by PearlDamour in collaboration with New Orleans’ Junebug Productions, Mondo Bizarro, No Dream Deferred, and the Land Memory Bank and Seed Exchange. The event brought together individuals working at the intersection of arts, culture, and environmental justice.

Designed as an intimate event, the convening allowed artists and organizers to learn about one another’s projects, grapple with critical questions, and build a community for mutual inspiration to address climate justice concerns throughout the Gulf South imaginatively. A panel that reached back into New Orleans’ cultural history was a centerpiece of the convening. Roots of Environmental Justice: The 1998 Junebug Productions ECHO Arts Festival brought together legacy artists and culture bearers with current leaders of New Orleans’ performance scene, looking to the past to signal toward the future.