Congo Basin Peatlands

PEAT ON STAGE AND IN THE WORLD.

“How would you dance, if you knew you were going to die?” This is the central question asked by the late choreographer Pina Bausch of her dancers in 1975 when she created her seminal work The Rite of Spring. This pioneering work, establishing her iconic approach, has gone on to become one of the 20th century’s most significant and important bodies of dance theater. Faithful to Stravinsky’s visceral score, Bausch’s monumental choreography is given a thrilling new life by a specially assembled company of 36 dancers from 14 African countries. — Park Avenue Armory

With its New York premiere at the Park Avenue Armory November 29-December 14, 2023, Armory Curator, Tavia Nyong’o invited two scientists, Makalé Faber Cullen and Peter M. Groffman, to bring audiences on a brief journey exploring the ecological and cultural significance of peat, specifically the world’s largest tropical peatlands in the Congo Basin. Spanning six African nations and part of a critically biodiverse ecosystem that has been sustainably stewarded by over 75 million people for generations, the Congo Basin Peatlands are also now also on the frontlines of our collective efforts to mitigate the climate crisis. “How will we live when we know the biodiversity around us is dying?”

The dancers in The Rite of Spring are performing on a stage covered in peat, a spongy type of soil made from decaying leaves, stems, roots and mosses. As these materials decompose, they release nutrients that facilitate new plant growth. The performers are, quite literally, dancing on life and death, feeling, hearing, and smelling the Earth as it interacts with their movements. In its own ways, peat disrupts our understanding of the finality of death.  Learn more.