Turning World

“The climate is changing. Are you?” Marda Kirn, the guiding light behind EcoArts, wants to know. Now in its third year, the Boulder-based arts-science collaboration — a month-long series comprising performances, talks, tours, workshops, panels and more — is all about suggesting ways that we can collectively take baby steps toward correcting the environmental mistakes made by mankind through history.

“This year, our focus is on sustainability,” Kirn says. “We need to figure a way to get out of this mess, and in order to do it, we need to shift, like an aikido move, not change overnight. This isn’t an end point, it’s a journey. We need to make small, incremental steps.”

Encouragement to do so comes in many forms during EcoArts, beginning with tonight’s free kickoff party at 6 p.m. at the Dairy Center for the Arts (2590 Walnut Street in Boulder), followed at 7:30 by Balancing Acts: Visions for a Sustainable Future, a thinking person’s show that Kirn calls a “wild range of collaborations between scientists and performing artists.” Included in the program is a partnership between dancer Michelle Ellsworth, University of Colorado at Boulder biogeochemist Jason Neff and others that involves solving situations determined by the spin of a roulette wheel, as well as performances by local actors of plays written by youth playwrights from the Curious Theatre New Voices program. Balancing Acts repeats tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. and at 4 p.m. on Sunday; admission is $16 to $23.

For a complete list of ongoing events, some free and some not, and eye-opening tours of various energy sources, both green and not-so-green, go to www.ecoartsonline.org or call 303-440-7826.
Sept. 12-Oct. 9, 2008