Concept: Frédérique Aït-Touati & Bruno Latour
Production: Compagnie Zone Critique Filmed in public on December 7, 2019 at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers Shooting, sound recording, editing and video concept: Patrick Laffont De Lojo

The play explores the parallels between two perspectives on the moving Earth: the perspective as understood by Galileo Galilei circa 1610, and the perspective from which we view the Earth today. Galileo’s farsightedness serves as the backdrop for this comparison, because one invariably searches for comparable events in the past when a catastrophe occurs. Today the ecological and political movements of young people are loudly drawing attention to the climate catastrophe. Scientists are explaining how and why the climate is changing and what effects climate change is having on the Earth and living organisms—the Earth is on the move. On the basis of many thought experiments and observation Galileo came to the conclusion that the heliocentric model was correct and the stars did not move around a static Earth. Legend has it that after being forced to recant his theory, he muttered defiantly in the courtroom “And yet it moves!”

The shock caused back then by a moving and sensitive Earth is comparable to that experienced by humankind today who appear finally to have woken up to the fact of climate change. In Joseph Losey’s 1947 film version of Bertolt Brecht’s play Life of Galileo the world is turned upside down: a carnival of inversions takes place. In Moving Earths these parallels, of people being swept up by the mobility and changeability of the Earth, are reflected upon from both a close-up and distant perspective.

 

 

 

 

Text: Bruno Latour
Staging: Frédérique Aït-Touati with Bruno Latour
Set Design: Patrick Laffont De Lojo, Frédérique Aït-Touati
Video and Light: Patrick Laffont De Lojo
Special thanks to Sébastien Dutreuil, Sean Hardy, Geoffrey Carey, Camille Louis, Philippe Quesne and Robert Woodford for his “Deep Time Cards.”
Co-produced by Centre Pompidou, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers
With the help of NA Fund, Fondation Carasso and DICRéAM