MAIA WELBEL ON NAVIGATING THE CLIMATE CRISIS
Maia Welbel (she/her) is a freelance journalist and dancer currently living on an urban farm in Berkeley, CA. We took the time to chat with her and ask about what motivates and inspires her to take on the climate crisis. You have an amazing hands-on and research background in farming and food sustainability. Is there a place and/or person that was pivotal in cultivating your relationship to nature? When I was little, my siblings and I would visit our grandmother on the farm where my dad grew up in a town called Sheldon in central Illinois. The sensory experience of being there contrasted so starkly from the urban environment of Chicago where we lived. The smell of damp hay, the colors of the woods in autumn, the fields that seemed to stretch on forever — I think I always felt a groundedness and peace there. My dad also talked to us a lot about how much the landscape had changed since he was a kid. He witnessed the transition of small-scale, organic farming to large-scale chemical agriculture in the Midwest firsthand. So I started thinking about the many injustices embedded in corporatized farming from a really young age, and basically never stopped thinking about it. Beginning in 2020, that same land gave rise to Zumwalt Acres, a regenerative agriculture community and agroforest that I now feel so lucky to consider a second home. What led you to pursue degrees in environmental analysis and journalism? At some point in high school, I distinctly remember deciding that I wanted to go into a career that helped people directly. For some reason I felt like my two options to fulfill that would be to become a doctor or try to solve the climate crisis, and medicine wasn’t particularly appealing. That line of thinking is obviously bananas looking back, but going into environmental studies ultimately was super aligned with my interests and ambitions. Writing was always my best subject in school and also called to me creatively, so I was fortunate to be able to study environmental analysis at Pomona College from a humanities and social sciences lens. My senior thesis ended up being essentially a work of longform narrative journalism about urban agriculture in Chicago. After I graduated, I decided I would apply to the one journalism master’s program I was most interested in (Northwestern had a climate reporting specialization and scholarship track), while simultaneously applying for various fellowship and jobs in environmental nonprofits. I got accepted into the program and decided to go. Working as a freelance journalist now feels like a dream in many ways. I get to do work I’m passionate about both in form and function. I also really hope that climate reporting as a field continues to grow and evolve so there are more work opportunities for creative, expressive, and empathetic writers. I think accessible journalism can be a vital aspect of climate activism. What is UneARTh? Are there any upcoming projects you’re especially excited about? UneARTh was founded by Sara Schroerlucke and co-directed by me and Maxine Patronik. The three of us met dancing in a company together in Chicago in 2018 have since become very dear friends, so working with them is such a gift. As an organization, we seek to empower and uplift artists of all mediums whose work is in service of climate activism. Right now in practice, that means we curate and produce galleries and performances; and gather resources, strategies, and platforms to enable artists in the UneARTh community to keep making impactful, sustainable, and fulfilling work. We are in this for the long run, and we share dreams of UneARTh becoming more expansive overtime. Maybe one day we’ll build a retreat center where folks can come make art in a restorative, communal nature space by day and sing and laugh together by a bonfire at night. A big tenant of our organization is divesting from the urgency around these things that capitalism teaches us to have. So we’re going slow but dreaming big! Two things I’m super excited about are the virtual discussion group we are hosting for Julia Cameron’s iconic workbook, The Artist’s Way. I’m also looking forward to the workshop series and performance we are developing for a dance festival about land justice and restoration at Zumwalt Acres this summer! What lesson(s) from your artistic practices do you feel are valuable for confronting the climate crisis? My personal artistic practice has taught me to be less precious about the things I create, whether it’s dance or writing or a different medium I’m trying. As much as I crave specific instructions and benchmarks to assure myself that I’m Doing It Right, I’ve also learned to recognize that the ambiguity is part of what makes it art. I think that can be applied in so many ways to confronting the climate crisis. The rhetoric around living a sustainable lifestyle or engaging in climate activism can veer a little bit toward perfectionism, and the all or nothing mentality that engenders is counterproductive. To butcher a quote from Anne-Marie Bonneau: we need lots of people fighting the climate crisis imperfectly, not a handful of people doing it perfectly. Do you have any favorite environment-related books/podcasts to recommend to readers? One thing about me is I alwayyyys have recommendations. Please feel free to Direct Message me specific requests at any time. But for now I will share a few books that I’ve found particularly impactful: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer An Immense World by Ed Yong Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey No Meat Required by Alicia Kennedy Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy Cora Cliburn, ACC Outreach Director (she/her) Title photo by: Ren Picco-Freeman  AN INTERVIEW WITH LAUREN LOVETTEThroughout the creative process it's the norm to think that ones resources are endless, as long as funding supports the idea. While still being able to support and reach goals, we're hoping to shift this perspective for creators. As artists, it's important for us to acknowledge our responsibility for the environments that shape our work and the impacts of our processes. In our efforts at ACC, we hope to encourage creatives to be cognizant of the environmental footprint of their work, while still encouraging them to pursue their artistic goals. Sustainability and artistic innovation can go hand in hand. In this interview, we were thrilled to connect with Lauren Lovette, former New York City Ballet star and emerging choreographer, to learn about how she brought an eco-friendly approach to costuming and set design for a recent choreographic commission. We believe her work is a great example of one way that choreographers and dance companies can contribute to a more sustainable future. What inspired your idea to create a “recycled” ballet for Oregon Ballet Theatre? I first had the idea to make a sustainable design for a piece of choreography in 2018, but it didn’t quite land the way that I had envisioned that it would. I was commissioned to make a work for a major ballet company and worked with the extraordinary designer, Zac Posen. We had the desire to take old forgotten costumes and redesign them to give them a new life, while also visually showing the ghosts of the past in our piece speaking to a changing ballet world. We weren’t able to fully execute our idea with the old costumes in that particular collaboration, however the concept remained etched in my brain and I knew that eventually I would have the opportunity to bring it to life. When Oregon Ballet Theatre expressed interest in premiering and showcasing some of my unfinished choreography from the Dance Lab NY residency years prior that I hadn’t found home for yet, it sparked the idea of a fully sustainable work… From the choreography itself to the sets and costumes on stage. I decided to request a hunt through the warehouses and started repurposing from the ground up all of the materials used! I named the work Eco. I structured the choreography tell an abstract tale of a lone wanderer happening upon a group of nomadic people, connecting with a young woman from the tribe and being renewed to take on his next journey ahead. Sustainability is one of our primary concerns as a world currently. I have followed how farming, fishing, the commercial industry, plastics, and many many other unintentionally wasted and unfocused projects have hurt our natural world and bring risk to our future generations health and wellbeing. We risk the endangerment and extinction of many plant and animal life that we currently take for granted every time we buy without considering our beautiful planet. United States dance companies and others worldwide need to cut costs with the inflation rates rising. Our world needs a break from unnecessary waste, and I feel that getting creative with what we already have could have the most positive effect across the board. It feels like a total WIN, Win, win. Can you describe how you approached OBT about making a sustainable ballet? Oregon Ballet Theatre immediately met me with excitement when I presented this idea. Peter Franc (interim artistic director at the time) was instrumental in taking the idea from a concept to reality. He worked alongside the staff to find old costumes from the production of Carmen, as well as it's gorgeous set that could be separated and rehung to create a totally new look. His belief in the project allowed me to execute my ideas while being supported by the staff and production team. Was “Eco” your first completely sustainable ballet? What else have you done in the dance world that incorporates a sustainable process? Eco was my first creation with a total aim at sustainability, however I have also worked with Santo Laquasto to repurpose backdrops and props in a number of my works for the Paul Taylor Company. I feel a great support in this mission being Resident Choreographer there. Can you explain how you designed and acquired your sets/costumes? I have been a thrift shopper since I was a young girl with only really buying things from Goodwill, Salvation Army, or yard sales. At that time in my life I shopped 'used' due to an inability to afford something new, but now I shop 'used' in order to be more intentional about how I shop for new items and the way that those new items are being built. It has become more popular amongst our general population to shop thrift/vintage due to the amount of waste “fast fashion” has caused on our planet globally. In New York City, there are plentiful vintage shops, antique stores, and online options to find and play with styles both past and future. A ballet warehouse is no different! There are racks upon racks of costumes and sets that could be auctioned off, repurposed, or taken apart to make new looks. I have made it a personal mission of mine to use recycled materials as often as possible and to work alongside designers to get creative in how we can do as little harm to our environment as possible while not placing bars on the creativity of the project. Did you feel supported by the dancers and leadership while taking a recycling-oriented approach? I have only just started my mission for a greener ballet world, and have many collaborators yet to work with, however I have truly felt supported by everyone involved in the companies that I have worked with so far and will continue to make this a priority in every new creation that I craft from here forward. Do you plan on creating more works in this way/what are your goals for sustainability in arts? I am currently working with Colorado Ballet on a new creation called “Three Views of a Mountain” and have hired on two designers that I greatly respect. Brandon Baker and Libby Stadstad are looking to maximize every resource we have and to come up with a seamless and classic design that will do minimal damage to our environment. We are still in the crafting stage of the process, but I know that the whole team is thrilled to dive into the possibilities that the Colorado Ballet has in its own warehouses to get playfully creative next week when we uncover the possibilities together! Keaton Leier, Co-Founder (he/him/his) Title photo by: Nisian |
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