Finding Petunia LittleTree offers a compassionate approach to climate change

Photos of Finding Petunia LittleTree by Mark Richards

Finding Petunia LittleTree, Sharon Took-Zozaya’s humorous, yet bittersweet, solo physical theatre and dance work will be performed at Move Orkney on 10 October at 12noon and 7:00pm. Her original script combined with video and Quee MacArthur’s sound design reveal Petunia’s quirky, inconsistent emotional responses to the climate emergency through a compassionate lens. It tells part of our collective story, asking “How can we live with what we know, with humour, dark undertones and all?”

Finding Petunia LittleTree is appropriate for audiences from 9 – 90+. This performance is part of a one-week residency that also includes participatory workshops.

Tickets for the performance can be purchased online or at the door: https://bit.ly/FindingPetuniaLittleTree

Like all humans, Petunia is a flawed character. Her voice and movement embody contradictory reactions to the climate crisis in both comical and deeply moving ways as she explores communication among trees, relationships with plastic rubbish, the tree’s personal history of fire and deforestation, and humans’ interdependence with the natural world. Her cognitive dissonances mirror those being played out more globally. A moderated post show discussion follows this performance, inviting audiences to reflect on, discuss and energise their own options and choices within the climate drama.

Quee MacArthur’s richly textured sound score amplifies imagery, movement and text as Petunia reveals her paradoxical relationship with a young tree that she treats like a baby.

Video projections by Lorenz Gramann and Sharon Took-Zozaya feature dancers Melissa MacGillivray, Prriyanka Gonawalaa, Ruby Worth, Sarah DaBell and Simone Kenyon.

Now based in the Findhorn Ecovillage, Took-Zozaya read The Environmental Handbook by Garrett De Bell as a teenager in the early 1970s. She expected that decisive, effective actions would prevent the climate disasters it predicted. However, those dire predictions are now coming true and this piece responds to the situation in which we find ourselves.

Since premiering at the Findhorn Bay Festival 2022, Finding Petunia LittleTree has been performed in 2023 at Citymoves’ DanceLive, in Inverness the Eden Court’s One Touch, and in The Universal Hall, Findhorn. Creation of this piece was supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland’s Open Fund, Surge, The Work Room and Citymoves, with in-kind support from Dance North.

Sharon Took-Zozaya has choreographed and performed across Scotland and internationally in a variety of professional, higher education and community contexts, with both able-bodied and disabled performers. Her Shadows and Dappled Light, a cross art form work responding to and incorporating Randy Klinger’s finely crafted portrait drawings, premiered at the DanceLive festival in Aberdeen in October 2021.