Environment

Abstract

The incorrigible specificity of all theatre and performance rests in its inescapable interactions with an environment of some kind or another. This is why in the third Christian millennium the survival of all theatre, if not all performance, may depend on new ways of assessing the environmental performance of nations. Since 2005 the relative impact of 149 countries on the Earth’s biosphere has been available through a UN-sponsored project — EPI: Environmental Performance Index — in a global ranking based on their environmental health and ecosystem vitality. Inevitably the EPI is contentious in its detail, but still it constitutes a profoundly significant factor for analysis of performance and theatre practice in the twenty-first century. For example, it provides a contextual tool for assessments of theatre/performance as part of the economic productivity of “cultural industry” activity in respect of a nation’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) or GVA (Gross Value Added) and therefore its potential contribution to climate change.