Where we choose to stand

work in progress

‘★★★★★’ - The Skinny

’Where we choose to stand’, currently in research and development, is an exploration of embodied experiences of contemporary climate activism, particularly against the backdrop of the UK’s 2022 Police and Crime Bill’s impact on protest tactics.

The project employs movement and music, composed by Nicolette Macleod, which draws inspiration from first hand accounts of direct action from climate activists.

In response to climate breakdown, people are putting their bodies on the line. Bodies hold ground or are moved against their will, draw attention with wild gestures or are dragged out of the public eye. We are seeing disproportionately harsh penalties imposed on environmental protestors, often for simple physical acts like walking slowly or passive resistance. Initial research indicates that some activists feel that the heavy handed responses from the UK government indicate that their activism is working; otherwise it wouldn’t provoke such extreme retaliation.

Penny has interviewed nine people involved in nonviolent direct action, learning about their tactics, gestures and ‘whole body’ physicalities. Initial periods of development have used this, alongside images that highlight the physicality of climate protest, as source material for movement phrases weaving roughness and ‘floppiness’ (a tactic used to make arrest harder). How can we represent the adaptiveness now demanded in protest tactics? What does it mean to physically stand for an idea? And how can an experience of both collective and individual agency be felt and seen?

“In a world that’s as obsessed with empowerment as it is with spectacle, this softly Boalian play of subjectivity has real potency.” - Douglas Rogers, The Skinny

‘Where we choose to stand’ is a project developing in collaboration musician Nicolette Macleod and ecoscenographer Mona Kastell. Project production is supported by Sheena Miller (the Rural Touring Agency) and informed by ongoing sustainability planning work with Katy Dye and choreographic mentorship from Dora Frankel and Dramaturgy from Emma Jayne Park. Project support workers Amy Dakin Harris and Hannah Deus Draper.

Development of the work has been supported by residencies at The Work Room (Glasgow), City Moves (Aberdeen), Tramway (Glasgow) and Dance Base. The project is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.

“Penny is a serious and committed dance artist creating work in an essential area, highlighting climate and environmental collapse. Time is never wasted and observations and provocations from my side are always 'received' and pondered upon. The dialogue is rewarding. We then lay the outline for the next steps; Penny conducts everything at the highest professional level and is a delight to work with." - Dora Frankel, on her work as mentor on ‘STOP’

Audience responses to the work after sharing at City Moves in January 2024: “Endurance, discomfort honest, silence, control, pressure, cyclical, connection, collective action, informed, empathy, constrained, passionate, scary, addictive, intriguing, quietly powerful, intense, moving, relevant, brave, passionate.”