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Join us for a Whole Earth Conversation with Andreas Weber (Germany) about the new role theatre, performance can and should play in the new age of the Anthropocene–a geological era shaped by humans rather than by nature. We ask how can the significant symbolic, imaginary and real space of theatre can help artists and audiences realize that a contemporary theatre and performance practice can no longer just represents interhuman conflicts. How can we raise the necessary and urgent awareness to include a planetary consciousness about animals, plants, viruses, the atmosphere, as well as the “critical zone” 30 feet above and below the surface of the earth in contemporary theatre and performance?

Andreas Weber   is a biologist, philosopher, and nature writer. He has degrees in Marine Biology and Cultural Studies, having collaborated with theoretical biologist Francisco Varela in Paris. Andreas‘ work is focusing on a re-evaluation of our understanding of living organisms. He is proposing to understand organisms as subjects and hence the biosphere as a meaning-creating and poetic reality. Accordingly, Andreas holds that an economy inspired by nature should not be designed as a mechanistic optimization machine, but rather as an ecosystem which transforms mutual sharing of matter and energy. Andreas has put forth his ideas in several books and is contributing to major German magazines and journals, such as GEO, National Geographic, Die Zeit and Greenpeace Magazine. His latest books are Enlivenment. Toward a Poetics for the Anthropocene (MIT Press, 2019) and Sharing Life: The Ecopolitics of Reciprocity (Boell Foundation, 2020). He teaches at the University of the Arts, Berlin and at the Università delle Scienze Gastronomiche in Pollenzo, Italy. Andreas lives in Berlin and Italy.