Green Pantomime When Silence Speaks out Environmental Issues

AIJOSH | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Vol. 3 No. 1 (2021) Andalas International Journal of Socio-Humanities ISSN: 2715-601X (Online) Available at: http://aijosh.lppm.unand.ac.id/index.php/aijosh/index DOI: https://doi.org/10.25077/aijosh.v3i1.16 Article Green Pantomime When Silence Speaks out Environmental Issues Mohamed Mliless*1 & Handoko2 1 Environmental Discourse, Morocco Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Andalas, Indonesia 2 Article Information Abstract Received : May 25, 2021 Green Pantomime Theater (GPT) is a tool for promoting children environmental awareness and activism. This paper provides insight into how environmental issues can be embedded in green performances and consequently offers a model of socio- environmental change. In Morocco, GPT performances aim to change children behavior, enhance their environmental awareness, and develop their abilities to act as protectors of the environment. The status of PGT upon children has considerably changed within the Moroccan theatre context. The ‘Creativity Association for the Development of Educational Work’, under Arabic name of ‫ جمعية لتنمية العمل التربوي إبداعات‬is a Moroccan nongovernmental association that employs GPT to promote environmental awareness and activism. The study examines a 45 minutes show performed by ‘the Joker’ theatre group titled ‫‘ البيئةهجرة‬Environment Migration’. Within the framework of ecocriticism (Bracke & Corporaal, 2010) and visual grammar (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), the present work attempts to explain how silence, gestures, and visuals mirror the themes of the show. The study argues that environmental themes adopted in the performance strongly point to the Anthropocene's responsibility in destroying nature. For example, scenes on pollution, deforestation, the killing of species, and unreported and unregulated fishing (UUF) show that man has been dramatically affecting the environment. To make of the show a success, participating actors have meticulously used signs and gestures to silently express their views about a highly sophisticated issue. They have made of this show a universal performance in that anyone anywhere can perceive. Eventually, GPTs are highly recommended to identify lines of confrontation that man has with nature. Also, GPTs are important in that they represent man’s practices through gestures and signs and may provide responses for inspiring socio- ecological change. Revised : July 10, 2021 Accepted : July 15, 2021 Published : July 15, 2021 Keywords Children theater, environmental education, green theatre, pantomime *Correspondence INTRODUCTION Green Pantomime Theater is an essential component of comprehensive and lifelong education that uses dramatic output to make children reconsiders their relations with the natural environment. Based on environmental issues, GPT aims to help children grasp the complexity environment crises, both natural and man-made. Importantly, GPT is based on silence and gestures to enforce environmental awareness, to foster the respect of nature, to promote individual and collective responsibility, and to develop children abilities to protect nature. Nonverbal communication (gestures, postures, and facial expressions) are basically used in pantomime shows to replace the linguistic text. According to Brown et al. (2019), gestural 11 AIJOSH | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Vol. 3 No. 1 (2021) theories on the origin of language claim that “the pantomime stage precedes speech as an initial form of referential communication” (p. 1). Importantly, gestures and signs express emotion, reinforce and give credibility to plays, but they can distort meaning if they are inappropriately used. Laughter and expressions of pain are the most universal non-verbal expressions considering that these signals are not universal and should be interpreted according to cultural or religious contexts. So far, mimic and gestures are the most explored areas of communication. Many performative activities are encompassed in the staging of comedy and drama. Brockett and Hildy (2015) mention that theatre uses of a number of elements that include time, place, participants, scenario, clothing, sound, and movement. All these elements, says Brockett and Hildy, are treated, combined with others to achieve the ultimate objective of pantomimes. An examination of sources on pantomime is needed to trace its history. For Lada-Richards (2007), pantomime, a silent performance, is one of the greatest aesthetic attractions in the world. Since ancient Greece, pantomime staging included silent and solo dancers incarnated many mythologies that were accompanied by music and songs. In modern times (1930s and 1940s) talking comedy in the ousted pantomime and threatened to vanish (Dutton, 2015). However, pantomime survived thanks to eminent masters namely Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Harry Langdon (Agee, 1949). Of great importance to modern pantomime are silence and gestures. In this study these tools are adopted to explain the extent to which the pantomime under study brings to the front natural degradation. Green Pantomime Theatre is beneficial to children in many ways. Green pantomime or mime greenturgy is a learning tool that children use to develop communication skills. It is play, and play is essential in their life. More than that, green pantomimes allow children to be more comfortable with their environment, open them to the world of art, and make of them future actors regarding the preservation of natural resources. Interestingly, the adoption of PGT at elementary school levels is highly recommended in that it strongly improves children’s team work, helps them develop self-esteem, and prepares them to become actors in the preservation of the ecosystem. In modern times, some of the threatening problems facing individuals and groups are ecological as climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, and chemical contamination are making life difficult for many to achieve wellbeing or even meet basic survival needs (Stibbe, 2017). There is a consensus among the scientific community that the risks are directly linked to the Anthropocene or man’s responsibility in changing natural continuity of the planet. Proponents of this trend argue that man has caused mass extinctions of plant and animal species, polluted the oceans, and altered the atmosphere among other lasting impacts (Clark, 2015; Hance, 2015; Stromberg, 2013). While there is a growing consensus on the role of academia in tackling challenges of sustainability (Kassab et al., 2018), inter- and transdisciplinary research can bring about the importance of environmental awareness and protection. Researchers in multiple fields on complex environmental challenges have shown ongoing enthusiasm for applying transdisciplinary rese (...truncated)