Bold and sensory – Uprooted [Alex Brenner]

EPHEMERAL Ensemble’s latest provocative work, Uprooted, is billed as “a tropical-punk, ecofeminist rallying cry”.

Inspired by conversations with environmental defenders in Latin America, this one-hour show exposes the devastation inflicted on the earth and indigenous women displaced by “colonial capitalism”.

In Ramon Ayres’ atmospheric production, performers Eyglo Belafonte, Vanessa Guevara Flores, Josephine Tremelling and Louise Wilcox blend physical theatre with Alex Paton’s evocative live music and Tremelling’s lighting to terrific effect.

Menacing masked figures threaten the female activists; in one harrowing moment, a woman is shot in the auditorium. Her limp body is lifted into the audience’s arms and we pass her back to the stage – immersing us in collective grief.

Despite the women’s resistance, the masked men return to fell trees, triggering a mudslide – both literal and symbolic – viscerally recreated with a plastic sheet.

Home reoccurs as a motif; at one point, a miniature house is worn like a rucksack. Several scenes unfold in darkness, heightening the feeling of threat.

Episodic in structure, Uprooted is nevertheless a bold, sensory work that confronts environmental and gendered violence with urgency and compassion.

Until October 25
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