Sustainable touring - Artist’s notebook

Note to selves - how can we do better by the environment? How can we make quality art and do better by the environment? How can we make and tour quality work and do better by the environment? How can we make and tour quality work and do better by the environment and afford it?

These questions have underpinned everything that we have done in the making and touring of Fault Lines. The work itself, an embodiment of living in a hotter, less stable world, the process a mission to artistically find the language of this but also find greener methods of making and touring. In making the work we were determined to reduce waste and embrace reuse before recycle. All of the costumes for cast and community cast dancers are from charity shops or donations, and 90% of all tech and props are 2nd hand, loaned or donated. We use a low energy setting on our projectors, and use rechargeable batteries for in our torches.

Throughout the making process we teamed up with a charity called UKHarvest who rescue surplus food, reducing waste and then distribute to local communities and charities. They kindly donated food to the Lîla team throughout our making process meaning that we could eat sustainably and with an educated understanding of where our food was coming from. Our team embraced the reduce, reuse, recycle principles underpinning the process - we all make extra effort on preparing lunches, bringing reusable bottles and cups, and working as a team to food shop together to reduce waste. Of course some waste was created, we could visibly see that that landfill waste was far less than in previous experiences and this came down to working as a team rather than shopping/eating as individuals.

Note to selves - working as a collective outside of the studio to share food, eat together and clean together is a greener process.

We tend to make works with a set. We love working inside the on stage world that a set can create but it had been our experience that this was not particularly environmentally friendly because you needed to purchase lots of new material and then when touring travel it around. So rethink time! Our producer Lou had an idea to create the scenery through digital projection - this would reduce the carbon footprint (especially if we source the tech 2nd hand) and be much easier to pack down and travel - another win for our greener touring agenda!

So digital projection became our new artistic venture! It was a challenge to understand the potential of this form having not explored it before, but working with digital artist Zach Walker from MakeAmplify enabled us to play, select, reject and finally refine the digital palette we wanted in the work. What was particularly interesting for us in the work, was the decision to embrace the artificial representation of nature and reject the potential for presenting ‘realistic images’. This opened up new narratives within the work around what happens when this is the only way we can connect wit nature? Weaving the digital, dance, sound and narrative together was an artistic challenge - there is a lot of layers to contend with but it was worth the risk for us to develop as artists and also find a more sustainable method for our working practices.

Note to selves - Challenge - Change - Compromise = Risk - rethink - reevaluate = Braver approaches - bolder ideas - Bigger issues.

Green travel

Over the tour we have made every effort to reduce the carbon footprint of our travel. This has been more expensive for us to get the company together for rehearsals and to tour venues but we have worked hard to make sure that people walk, bike, train and car share. Having changed our practice from set to digital projection mean that we did not need a van to move from venue to venue. For most venues a single car was needed to get the tech to the venue and this was accompanied by 3 people in the car, all travelling from the same location…. everyone else was on the train.

The final leg of the Summer 2024 tour took us from South of England to Edinburgh Fringe Festival and straight to Aarhus Festival, Denmark. We looked at how this epic journey could be managed in a green way. This was particularly important as our involvement with Aarhus Festival emerged through our associateship with Pavilion Dance South West PDSW who were partners on the International Touring and Environmental Responsibility programme (ITER). Simply put, how can international touring be environmentally responsible.

As a selected company on the ITER programme, it was important that we really tested a green method of international touring, so all dancers, tech team, Artistic Directors and the tech, props and costume went to Edinburgh Festival and Aarhus via train. Training to Edinburgh was not too challenging as we had 9 of us to carry the luggage. The Journey from Edinburgh to Denmark was a little more challenging, we were only taking three dancers so the luggage was no being transported by 6 people and the journey required 22 hours of travel, an over night stay and 7 train changes including 2 boarder crossing - for each leg of the journey. Honestly it was challenging, exhausting and at times, hard to navigate the trains. Yet we made it and we were able to present the work without compromise. The carbon saving of going by train rather than plane, for this part of the tour (Home-Edinburgh-London-Aarhus-London-Home) was mind-blowing, approx calculations -

Train & Plane travel = 5.02 tons

Train travel = 1.06 tons

Note to selves - For us it is clear that it can work and that it is worth the change in thinking to be able to reduce our carbon footprint. It just will take more time, money, and this will mean more support networks in funding bodies and venues. We were very lucky that this project was excellently supported, it will interesting to see how this can impact the wider discussion for companies touring internationally but do so in a greener way.