How 'eco improv' can help manage climate anxiety

CBC

7 days ago

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"I really appreciate you all being here," said Anaïs Pronovost-Morgan, as she welcomed participants to eco improv on Granville Island in Vancouver.
"It takes a lot of courage to try something new, and I hope we're going to have some fun and we're going to learn things together today."
Last week's event was one of hundreds as part of Pacific Northwest Climate Week, and started with 13 people introducing themselves in a circle. Some hadn't done improv in years, but they were all excited to try it with a climate lens.
"Eco improv, as it says in the name, is a blending of improv theatre with environmental concepts, experiences and what I like to call 'eco emotions,'" she told CBC News after the workshop.
Pronovost-Morgan, who's been an improv actor for eight years, says she started eco improv to help herself work through her own feelings about climate change. Though each session is different by nature, it often involves coming up with climate-related prompts for acted-out scenes, or prompts to dig into specific emotions.
As climate disasters have increased in frequency and severity in recent years, people may be feeling more climate-related anxiety. But as Pronovost-Morgan points out, there's more to it than just worry and despair. She's seen a range of emotions in her workshops — even hope and wonder — and believes eco improv is a way to work through all of those feelings.
Eco emotions
Pronovost-Morgan says she's always struggled with climate anxiety. That's why she decided to mash together climate and the arts for her master's degree in arts, creativity and education at Cambridge University.
There, she showed that improv could help teenagers come out of their shells and deal with difficult conversations and feelings about climate change.
Now, she's helping others do the same.
Carol Hunter hadn't done improv since high school but says she signed up for the workshop because she was concerned about the environment. She'd never met Herbert Au — who signed up to find inspiration for his poetry — but soon, the two were sharing a scene together.
Their prompt was based on another participant's memory of ravens in the snow.
"We did a silent improv, so it was more based on body movement and sounds" rather than words spoken out loud, said Hunter.
"You know, there was a little bit of nervousness, not certain at what to do sometimes," said Au. "I just followed the prompt quite literally and followed the characters in it."
Soon, these complete strangers from different backgrounds were running around the room, cawing like ravens. And everyone was laughing along with them. Au said he was pleasantly surprised.
"There's a really beautiful thing about that," he said, "that I think it really helps people with imposter syndrome get over their fear of performing."
It was exactly the kind of performance that Pronovost-Morgan wanted to see.
"The audience didn't quite know how to react to that, so there was some nervous laughter and there was also some delightful laughter," she said. "People were quite surprised and engaged and curious."
Erica Binder, co-founder of Sword Fern Collective, the community group hosting the event, said similarly.
"I think people felt really safe being vulnerable with each other, and it was so inspiring to see a very real example of how art and improv can help us have these difficult conversations more easily."
Managing uncertainty, finding community
Kiffer Card, assistant professor at Simon Fraser University, also agrees that these kinds of engaging, accessible activities are important. He says they are probably one of the most important buffers against stress.
"I think in some ways this doesn't seem like a mental health intervention ... but actually it's exactly the sort of mental health innovations that we need to be exploring as a society," he said.
It's not a silver bullet, and it won't solve climate change, he says, but he sees it as a way to manage uncertainty and help people get more comfortable speaking up about how they're feeling.
"Therapy may be inaccessible, or you might not be comfortable doing it, so finding these sort of interventions that really connect people and are low-barrier is a really important part of our mental health response to climate change."
He encourages it and wants people to start thinking about how to support communities engaging in that kind of work.
And he's not the only one.
Samantha Blackwell is pursuing her master's degree in resources, environment and sustainability at the University of British Columbia. She says she really wanted to try eco improv to tap into her creative side.
"I'm really grateful for this experience. I think it taught me that with regards to climate change, like, there can be positivity and silliness surrounding it," she said.
Blackwell now plans to recommend it to everyone.
"PowerPoint presentations are great and all, but it's important to have these more creative ways to engage with these conversations, so that it doesn't feel, like, boring and academic all the time."
Pronovost-Morgan says she has started planning for the next eco improv event, and she already has a group of people wanting to join her.
"Eco improv is not going to solve the climate crisis," she said.
"However, it does help us learn and practise some of the skills that we need in climate action — such as navigating uncertainty — in a low-stakes environment."