Last October, Penny Chivas brought her dance production Burnt Out to Macrobert Arts Centre as part of her mission to tour around Scotland using the most sustainable and low-carbon means possible.
The 39-year-old Australian dancer talks to Brig about the success of her Scottish tour, her recent performance in Finland, and upcoming projects.
Chivas moved to Glasgow 14 years ago and created her solo dance work Burnt Out as part of her post-grad program at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2020.
The piece is a response to her environmental anxiety after experiencing both the Canberra bushfires of 2003 and the Black Summer bushfires of 2019.
“My Mum didn’t want to leave the house because the air quality was so hazardous,” said Chivas. “I knew I would be leaving for Scotland in a few weeks, but my parents and family would have to continue for who knows how long.”
“Burnt Out became about trying to make sense of what was going on. What do you do with all the conflicting emotions when climate change affects you firsthand?” she said.
Although the production has been touring for three years, the recent Scottish leg was the first time Chivas and her team had attempted to go fully green.
“We toured from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway solely by ferries, trains, public buses, and bicycles,” said Chivas. “We did the math and I saved around two return flights from Glasgow to St. Petersburg in carbon emissions.”
Everything was meticulously thought out, from methods of transport to ethical costume design and limited use of props.
“We’re starting to see more sustainability in tours but not on the level we’ve done it,” she said. “Once we make a big deal of this then other people are going to follow and that ripple effect is what’s so exciting.”
The normal touring method would be to fly to Orkney and Shetland, but Chivas and her team remained dedicated to slow travel and saved 1.45 tonnes of CO2e, a reduction of 74 per cent from the standard touring model.
Chivas also ran climate-themed dance workshops before each performance and post-show discussions chaired by a local activist.
“The main thing for me is to allow a space for people to feel the gravity of the situation and connect with other people who are feeling the same sense of panic,” she said. “For this tour, I wanted to introduce people to local artists or activists that they could get involved with.”
When Chivas created Burnt Out, venues were reluctant to program a climate-based work. Even on the recent tour, she faced pushback in Banchory, Aberdeenshire, an area relying heavily on oil revenue.
Fortunately, this has only made her more determined, and audience responses keep her going: “In Glasgow, someone brought their daughter along who had been refusing to go to school since Rosebank was approved. She was experiencing that ‘What is my future?’ feeling and seeing her connect with other audience members and the guest speaker was such a beautiful thing to witness.”
After her Scottish tour, Chivas was supported by The National Lottery via Creative Scotland to travel to Finland and perform Burnt Out at Lonely in the Rain, a festival dedicated solely to political dance works.
Given that slow travel would have taken days, Chivas made the difficult decision to take a flight but made sure to offset her carbon footprint by donating to The Big Picture rewilding project in Scotland.
“I got a full house which was amazing, especially because the work has quite a lot of text and I didn’t know if people would want to come and see work with spoken English in it,” she said.
Chivas hopes to continue touring Burnt Out but is also excited about developing a new work titled Stop. The piece will explore experiences of climate activism at a time when even peaceful protestors are at risk of harsh penalties.
“I’ve been interviewing climate activists across the UK and sound recording some of their stories about why they take the action they do and some of them even talk about getting arrested,” she said. “I feel it’s really important to tell these stories about people’s belief and determination onstage during our current political times.”
Featured Image Credit: Brian Hartley
