SASS

SASCHA UND DER ERDGEIST Sasha and the Soil Spirit

Location of activities and scope

Kassel Festival, Germany, Performance

Germany – Festival animation – Performance

 

Executive Summary

Our objective is to deliver an interactive multilingual theatre experience where art and soil science meld, and all are able to engage. Our target audiences are the families, students and theatre goers of Kassel and its hinterland. We will animate our part of the Kassel Soil Festival up to 9 times in three days with an experience that includes: 1) mastering participatory elements 2) co-creating a mythic emotional show about soil (linking soil health to profound human needs for spiritual meaning and community/family bonds) 3) learning the soil science with others and pledging together to take action. We expect over 1000 people to share in this experience, increase their soil literacy, and pledge to action at the local, city and state level, sharing their knowledge with 4000 family and friends. This year-long process will complete in 2027 with a filmed, documented and replicable product that can be repeated in classrooms and theatres across Europe, aiming to start in Berlin.

Sasha and the soil spirit

Motivation Statement

Healthy soil to us means healthy life on earth. We have seen the degradation of earth’s soils in the countries we live in. Our understanding of ‘soil’ began with a visceral fear of erosion and soil pollution, then noticing development overwhelming the healthy soils of our childhoods, progressing through seeing the  effect of agricultural practices on soil and water, growing with our better understanding of soil’s potential as a carbon sink, the importance of soil’s microscopic life,  and the factors that affect it.  Independently and together we have worked as citizens for a better environment and fought to educate ourselves, aiming to bring this knowledge to our art work across the decades.  This project presents us with an opportunity to delve deeper, and to engage with promulgating the importance of something we have gradually come to place at the centre of our understanding of a healthy environment.

Sub-project objectives

Our project will focus on goals 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 of A Soil Deal for Europe. Our project objective is to create one three-part interactive and accurate soil-science-performance experience, integrating eight team members, featuring a minimum of three languages, performed for up to 1000 across three days in June 2027 underpinned by eight KPIs.

Challenges and how they will be addressed

Tech-addicted young people today face more challenges to their connection to nature than any generation before them, as they are the first generation to be raised by tech-addicted parents. They face particular social anxiety, and a dulling of their imaginative powers. The unique challenge is to present a work of art that is unplugged enough to take them to ‘imagination gym’, that forges emotional bonds within the room through participation in a meaningful story, and puts them in a frame of mind to imagine a different approach to soil, and positive actions they could personally take. If families or groups of friends attend our production, this presents us with a unique opportunity to link engagement with soil health to those pre-existing social bonds through group participation in the show. We will ensure that our multi-lingual approach to documents and spoken word will be inclusive for minorities.

Expected outcomes

KPI 1 To produce a script combining an effective story with well-researched soil science facts pertaining to goals 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 of A Soil Deal for Europe.
KP2 To integrate all the elements of puppet, raw/found object puppetry, music and multi-lingual participatory performance into a production, fitting seamlessly with and highlighting soil science
KP3 A coherent pre-show audience participation plan and
KP4 A science driven post-show action, supported by
KP5 A multilingual press release, playbill, podcast, captured on
KP6 A high-quality two-camera recording of pre-and-post-performance, shaped into video output
KP7 A plan for onward activity beginning in Berlin, elsewhere in German theatres, and in schools across the country, based on a video and teaching package.
This will result in approx 1000 members of the public being aware of the importance of soil to their wellbeing and survival, and passing this knowledge (as well as actions to take) on to 4000 people.

 

Meet the Project Team

Compagnie L’instant même France

French Theater company working on multilingual creation and engagement of audiences through linguistic diversity.

Contact – Anne Bérélowitch , Artistic director.

Instant MIX Theater Lab Europe

European partners for this project are artists and organizations from Berlin, Belfast, Paris, and Novi-Sad