A recent article in The Atlantic describes recently confirmed links between hot weather and suicidal anxiety; certain studies are predicting a sharp increase in climate-related suicides in the coming decades.

Ritual for Mass Suicide takes us through the Kubler Ross stages of grief over mass extinction, exploring human response to impending catastrophe—from wish fulfillment to despair—and asking what it might take to create change on an unprecedented human scale. It’s a memory palace through movement and audience interaction.

Source material includes insect behaviors, Solid Gold Dancer routines from the early 80s, 1960s radical feminist spiritualism, 19th c. homosocial lodge ceremonies, Heaven’s Gate, and other ways of managing group anxiety, fear and ecstasy. 

The initial workshop performance for Ritual for Mass Suicide took place in April 2019 as part of the Pieter Dancemakers Grant. Clips below are from scores: Grief Wailing and Udanax. Other showing from LA Performance Project. Clips below are Memory Palace and Kathe Kollwitz Mourning Dance.