Biomes is a contemporary dance production that unearths hard-earned love with our natural environments. We explore this through three perspectives: as humans, as plants, and by zooming out to the biomes that make up the ecosystems on our planet. It pulls inspiration from Zoë Schlanger’s book “The Light Eaters,” Richard Powers’ book “The Overstory”, and the perspectives of scientists and community members associated with the University of Minnesota’s Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (CCESR), where I have been Artist-in-Residence since 2024.

The three perspectives are sections in the overall work:

-Stewards: The Animal Kingdom. What is our relationship to our environment? How did we learn to care about it, and how did we become disconnected? In this section of the work, the focus will be on specific humanistic roles: the Inheritor, the Scientist, and the Disconnected.

-The Other Kingdom: The Plant Kingdom. Science is only beginning to decipher the complexities of plants’ biological agencies. Evidence is building to support plants’ consciousness and intelligence, though nothing has yet been proven. What would it look like to embody this unfamiliar form of  intelligence?

-Biomes: this section will unite the two Kingdoms in one ecosystem. How will these worlds listen to each other? How will they interact, see each other, find hard-earned love and respect for each other?

By inviting audiences to imaginatively embody plant intelligence and ecosystemic interdependence, this work focuses on the empathic, imaginative leap that allows people to see beyond anthropocentric perspectives—to feel with, not just think about, the other forms of life and systems in which we are embedded.

Biomes will premiere May 7-10, 2026 at the Luminary Arts Center.

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