A dramatic street theatre performance ‘Funeral for Nature‘ will take place throughout the streets of Bath on Saturday 20 April to mark the devastating decline of the natural world in the lead up to Earth Day on 22 April, an annual event which engages up to a billion people around the world each year.
Funeral for Nature: worldwide events
The Funeral for Nature procession includes 400 Red Rebels dressed in their distinctive red outfits and hundreds of mourners in black. They will be accompanied by drummers playing a single funeral beat as they make their way through the city’s historic streets, culminating in a dramatic finale in front of the Abbey.
This will be the largest global assembly of Red Rebels ever seen, 400 in total. This is five times more than ever before, with people travelling from all over the UK and joined by groups from the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark.
Funerals for Nature will be taking place simultaneously in Boston, Sydney, Gothenburg, and Lisbon. The Gothenburg event will be a ‘Nordic Funeral for Nature’ with groups joining from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.
Bath: raising awareness of nature depletion
The procession has been designed to raise awareness of the UK’s position as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with 43% of UK bird species in decline, and 97% of wildflower meadows disappearing since the second world war. The organisers say statistics like these have motivated the group to take action, flooding the city in red and declaring ‘Code Red for Nature’.
Thousands of ‘Orders of Service’ will be given out to onlookers, containing information about the crisis and what they can do about it.
The Bath procession will be joined by nature campaigner Chris Packham who will deliver a ‘eulogy’ to the crowd at the finale of the event when it arrives in front of the Abbey. This will follow a flashmob performance by the West of England Youth Orchestra.
The centre-piece of the procession will be a beautiful funeral bier, constructed from willow, with a ‘Mother Earth’ figure created by renowned artist Anna Gillespie. It will lie on a naturalistic bed of planting staged by Chelsea award-winning landscape designers Dan Pearson Studio, followed by mourners in black hats and veils.
The sixth mass extinction event
The event has been planned to coincide with Earth Day, happening just two days later on 22 April, to highlight that we are at ‘CODE RED’ for nature and that around the world, biodiversity is being annihilated at a terrifying rate.
Organisers say that we are entering the ‘sixth mass extinction’ event and the consequences could be catastrophic if we do not act swiftly, and that in spite of promises from governments, biodiversity loss shows no sign of slowing.
Rob Delius, head of sustainability & architect at Stride Treglown – one of the organisers and the person who put forward the Funeral for Nature idea – said:
The intention is to send a powerful SOS message for nature by creating a visual spectacle, that will in equal measures shock and inspire onlookers. The UK has sleepwalked into this nature crisis and the fact that we are now one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world simply isn’t being talked about enough.
We want the processions to create a talking point and for the public to be moved to demand that Government, Local Authorities, landowners and businesses urgently do more to restore biodiversity.
Funeral for Nature – we must act now
Doug Francisco, creative director and founding member of The Invisible Circus, said:
There is no better time to act than right now. It is clear that we are in a crisis and there are no second chances – we have to do something immediately. We hope that this demonstration, in its beauty and urgency, will incite action in more cities across the world. We want to see Red Rebels on streets across the globe, spreading the message that if we don’t act now, we won’t be able to act at all!
Anna Gillespie, artist, said:
Unlike conventional protests, the procession will be free of banners or placards. Instead we are relying on the strong imagery of the huge assembly of Red Rebels and the impact of the figure of Mother Nature on a funeral bier carried by mourners to get the message across.
Everyone participating has a powerful desire to express their desperate feelings of loss and fear as the natural world struggles to survive in the face of our human onslaught.
Featured image via Code Red for Nature
