f we really want to move into a future where humans are not the centre of the world, we need to treat other forms of life and materiality with full respect, biologically, culturally, intellectually and politically.
–Zheng Bo

Dance Grass Dance Tree is a performance by Zheng Bo that cultivates intimate human-plant relationships and kinship. In doing so, Zheng seeks to provide a positive counter to global crises of the economy, security, health and migration that have triggered cascading systemic shocks and generated a state of profound instability. As these challenges persist, the climate emergency continues to escalate unabated, compounding the vulnerabilities of societies already grappling with concurrent crises and rising political tensions.

Commissioned by AGWA as part of the Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art, this performance is choreographed by Zheng and Tyrone Earl Lraé Robinson who collaborated with two dancers and five Western Australian plants. Set atop a sparsely populated garden located inside a modern gallery space, the dance unfolds within a setting that isolates and elevates the presence of each plant. This garden-come-stage emphasises the preciousness of each plant and the precarity of their, and our shared existence.

Their work Dance Grass Dance Tree draws on the notion of ‘making kin’ to consider how all of the Earth’s life forms are bound to fragile ecologies. To be kin with the surrounding plants is to have an enduring relatedness that is mutual, obligatory, pleasurable and accountable. The performance thereby poses a critical question: to whom is one truly responsible?

Read more about this work by clicking on the website link above.