Hau

Abstract

Our bodies, suffused with atmospheres, ancestors and chemical compounds produced by sunlight, are ‘meterontological' (Randerson 2018). We are the weather. And yet an apocalypse of the skies threatens the futures of our children. In this writing we propose a complex and nuanced alternative to the monolithic concept of the Anthropocene through intracultural and indigenous place-based performance incorporating sonic strata, choreographies of relation, and atmospheric research science. In contemplating an apocalypse of the skies, from one of the places in the world with the cleanest air (Lauder, Central Otago), LungSong - The Living Archives of Breath became a meeting place for a multiplicity of voices and gestures - indigenous, scientific, young, old - to be aired with participatory audience. A concept of political breathing emerged, resisting the ‘forgetting of air' (Irigaray 1999). Deadly weather, vital weather, strange and uncanny weather moved through us. In bringing Morton's (2007) ‘dark ecology’ into dialogue with Te Kore and Hauora (breath of life) in dances that took our breath away, we countered the depressed Northern landscapes of blackened realities by exploring what sustains life in a movement towards hope. New ways of attuning to and expressing the complexity of this moment emerged from this coming together of indigenous performance, climate change science, experimental choreography and sound design. LungSong, partnered the sky as home to ancestors, with data from a system in distress.

Notes

1 Lauder is one of five global charter sites in the international Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). Consequently, it has some of the best instruments in the world for atmospheric research. https://bit.ly/3e5DVLH