Get Me Off This F***ing Planet: A performative response to the climate crisis

Set to premiere in 2026, Sofia Kalogeropoulou, Maddy Parkins-Craig and Tessa Romano discuss their multidisciplinary performance piece in progress called Get Me Off This F***ing Planet . Drawing from their cross-sectional expertise of instrumental, vocal music and dance, this new composition/performance piece will use physical and musical storytelling. This approach, inspired by eco-somatics, is to explore our shared humanity within the context of the disturbing emerging trends in the current sociopolitical landscape both in Aotearoa and the wider world, and the looming tipping point in the fight against climate change. The work considers the roles of natural beauty and the potential joys of human relationships, ultimately cycling through the states of anger, grief and joy to confront, commiserate and celebrate with its audience in asking: How do we cope with contemporary living in the midst of climate catastrophe and political upheaval? Emigrating from the United States, Australia and Greece, the authors of this article and creators of this performance piece have witnessed their countries on fire both politically and literally, while being keenly aware, now inhabiting Aotearoa, of ‘sinking’ islands and archipelagos like Tuvalu and Vanuatu. This article considers the urgency behind the performance work’s creation influenced by the fraught relationship between humanity and the environment both in the authors’ countries of origin and their current inhabitance in Aotearoa.