EARTH WIND FIRE

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE ELEMENTS

Earth Wind Fire is a dance-drama created by two early-career artists (choreographer Willa Faulkner and composer Johnny Hibbs) and performed by three aspiring young dancers, with Artistic Director Mark Beeson guiding and supporting the creative process.
Earth Wind Fire aims to portray the Slow Carbon Cycle (a process over thousands of years) in contrast to the human experience of the daily phenomena of Earth, Wind and Fire.
 
As the NASA website puts it:
 
‘Chemistry regulates this dance between ocean, land, and atmosphere. If carbon dioxide rises in the atmosphere because of an increase in volcanic activity, for example, temperatures rise, leading to more rain, which dissolves more rock, creating more ions that will eventually deposit more carbon on the ocean floor. It takes a few hundred thousand years to rebalance the slow carbon cycle through chemical weathering.’
 
Human actions are altering the balance. Our scenario looks at the concept of justice as central to tackling imbalance: justice for humans and for non-humans as part of a post-humanist approach to the Planet. Listening to small things and accurate observation are an important part of this.

This production is funded by Arts Council England and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

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THE ARTISTS

WILLA FAULKNER – CHOREOGRAPHER

Willa grew up on Dartmoor and has been a part of different local dance, music, and drama classes. She trained at Trinity Laban for three years in Contemporary Dance where she became a founding member of MassHysteria Collective; a group of 12 female dance artists who challenge themselves with shared curiosities and questions, making events, performances, and workshops. From 2019-2020 she studied Contemporary dance in Portugal at Performact. MED Theatre has played a big part in Willa’s personal and creative development and she is excited to work with MED Theatre for the first time in the role of choreographer.

JONNY HIBBS – COMPOSER & MUSICIAN

Jonny enjoys fusing together different practices such as dance, music and theatre, to create performance. Dartmoor has been his home since birth, its strong influences residing quite happily over his work. He is currently training in dance at London Dance Studio and has a particular interest in choreographing classical work. Jonny first worked with MED Theatre as a young actor and musician in ‘Whitehorse Hill’. Subsequent involvement with the composition and playing of music for annual community plays has played a forceful part in the widening of his creative response to Dartmoor.

What's it about?

The major carbon cycle is slow, it is constantly happening in the background on a timescale of millions of years through volcanic eruptions putting CO2 into the atmosphere to keep the planet warm and increased rainfall when the planet warms up to remove the CO2 into the oceans where it is subducted under the tectonic plates back into the volcanoes. Humans, however, have no tangible experience of it.  Human reaction is often quick, done without much thought, often upsetting the balance of things.  The carbon cycle centralises this idea of balance.

EARTH WIND FIRE

Earth Wind Fire was performed on

27th June 2021 at 2pm and 5pm

Unfortunately, due to wet weather, the performances took place indoors, in Bridford Village Hall, to limited audiences.

A dress rehearsal of the production was filmed outdoors at Bridford Woodland Park and will be available for viewing in the near future.