Rising Tide

Rising tide is a performance that is very relevant in today's society, in that it deals with the topic of global warming and how we humans contribute to changing the planet. Through the performance, the actors show how the evolution of life on earth went from start to now. "It started with the big bang, and then came life on earth. Then came humans, and it was we who practically created global warming. 

There wasn't a very clear connection between the different parts of the performance and the theme, i.e. how animals are affected by man-made global warming. For example, in the beginning, the dancing was quite abstract and they showed little emotion. This was in great contrast to later on, where they changed how they portrayed the problem and made everything extremely clear, such as when the globe was thrown in. 

There are of course several ways to interpret this performance, but global warming was the main theme. It was a good performance that struck a chord with us all.

"We thought it was cool when they went into the audience, because it gave us a more in-depth feeling of the performance. None of us have experienced this before, which made it an experience that was something out of the ordinary. It makes people wake up a bit, as it was a relatively long performance. They snapped with the audience and threw the snaps to and from us. This may have symbolized a kind of energy, as later in the performance these snaps were used as a kind of defibrillator. This was also cool because it made us more engaged, and it created a connection between the audience and the dancers. In addition, we occasionally made eye contact with the dancers, which meant that, at least I (Katinka), got a stronger sense of what was happening. We were given ice cubes that were passed from one member of the audience to another. This gave us a good symbol of the human impact of the melting ice.  

At the same time, we received good input during discussions about this piece after it was finished, where we were exposed to the idea that not everyone will be equally comfortable with this interaction. Coming up to the audience and touching people a lot, and getting them out on stage is very engaging for many, but for others it will also be uncomfortable. It's a children's show that's very suitable for children, but perhaps not so suitable for older people. 

Written by the SUS editorial team