In November 2024, Rituals for Earthly Survival invited audiences into the Mystical Forest—an immersive ritual staged inside the historic Treadgolds building as part of the We Shine Portsmouth festival. Created by one000plateaus, it blended Butoh dance, light, sound, scent, projection, and participatory storytelling into a contemplative space for ecological imagination.
Led by a core creative team—Roy Hanney, Yumino Seki, Rusty Sheriff, Kim Balouch, and Alice Kristina-Rose—the project drew on Japanese Butoh, climate science, and ritual theory to ask: what practices do we need to survive this moment of planetary crisis? And how might we rehearse those practices together, through art?
Visitors were welcomed by the Gatekeeper—a figure surrounded by graphs, books, and data pinned like evidence in a climate investigation. This prologue prepared participants to step into a liminal world populated by the Children of the Compost—guardians of the forest conjured through haunting movement, pulsing sound, and shifting light. Scents of mulch and pine mingled with floor coverings of real leaf litter. Projections enveloped the walls, and a glowing vine-and-thorn sculpture became the emotional centrepiece of the space.
One reviewer described the performance as “beautiful and moving… a psychedelic forest summoned from the ruins.” The combination of immersive scenography, Butoh’s slow and contemplative form, and a sound bath of ambient textures created an experience that captivated a wide cross-section of visitors—from families with small children to older residents and local artists. Some stayed five minutes. Some stayed an hour. Many returned.
Adjacent to the performance space, a community garden had been temporarily co-opted for the weekend. Here, audience members who had been gifted seed packets collected from a local park—oak, hornbeam, beech—handed to them by dancers during the performance, were encouraged to take them to the garden. These seeds were then planted by volunteers in the garden beds and later collected by Portsmouth Tree Wardens to be grown on and planted across the city. A quiet, living legacy now taking root—small acts of survival for future forests.
The experience wasn’t without its challenges. One review praised the lighting, sound and scent design but noted the visibility of the tech desk broke the illusion. Others wanted more ritual, more direct interaction, a deeper sense of being inside the performance rather than watching from the edges. These reflections are taken seriously and feed directly into the design of what comes next.
Because Rituals for Earthly Survival was never meant to be a one-off.
We’re already working on the next iteration: Rituals II (POSE). This immersive ritual invites you to compost the past and care for each other in a world shaped by uncertainty. As you move through the flickering forest, you’ll encounter shifting sounds, living bodies, and quiet acts of care. You may be invited to dance, to rest, to witness. Nothing is expected. Everything is shared.
Watch this space.
