Last June I created a performance as a result of my TheatreQuest – a journey of self-discovery through art that I offer regularly to locals. In this case it was an adaptation of a Shakespeare’s masterpiece, an intergenerational experience with children and adults using the theatre form of a procession: the audience walked from one “station” to another to watch different scenes.

After my MA in Engaged Ecology at Schumacher College and one year course in nature-based practices at Ecodharma (Catalunya) my mission as a playwright and stage director has drastically moved from the realm of entertainment to well-being and re-connection with that vast and profound part of us (physical and metaphysical) that we call Nature. What I offer is eco-theatre, from Oikos (Greek term for home): it can be described as a journey home. What I do it’s not a job for me, it is a mission, I am an activist through the medium of theater.

Midsummer Day’s Dream performed in the woods was a real dream come true for me with nature being the lead role. I attuned with the land (I never create a theatre piece without attunement) and I chose the locations for each scene, checking with Kajedo that we were not disturbing the land and its dwellers in any way… BUT…. At the last minute, I added one location that felt perfect for the last scene: a ceremony where the audience were asked to make a vow to the land, a sort of wedding ceremony.

The play was a success! So it was like a cold shower when Kajedo, after the performance, told me that I had chosen a location where a very rare lichen was growing and that I might have killed an entire ecosystem… My heart dropped. After the initial shock and inevitable sense of guilt, I had only one choice: respond to my action and learn from it. I asked Kajedo to join one of his guided tours. I wanted to learn about the land, and I wanted to make this hard lesson (for me) useful. I fell in love with the lichens almost immediately. It was probably the first time I understood the word “kinship” as I literally felt it under my skin.

That encounter inspired other two performances: Something Matters and Everything Matters that took place in summer as a result of two 10-day TheatreQuests in the same wood. My relationship with the land is in constant mutation, deepening, growing: we dance together. I see myself in every tree and I wonder if the trees see some of themselves in me. We talk, the trees and I, usually through breathing together, in silence. My hands expressing my presence, touching the cortex, my feet consciously “listening” at every step, who thought we could listen through our feet?! When I have a problem, I tell the land and when I am happy, I tell the land; I expand my minuscule self into the vastness of creation. We are a symphony when we play together: land and humans, we are the expression of love. I think this is what true love means, quoting from Midsummer Day’s Dream: “Love is like breathing, it is an inevitable movement of care”.

P.S. I didn’t kill the ecosystem after all, a few weeks later Kajedo informed me that the lichens not only survived but they were actually thriving there. I like to believe that it was all orchestrated by the lichens.. And that they are smiling :). Thank you Hinterland Trust for all you do!

With gratitude, Laura Pasetti
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If you wish to know more about my work: www.theatreofthe7directions.com