Extinction Room is the first part of the performance Hopeless., in which the pastoral poetry of Greek and Roman antiquity is evoked and reanimated. These nature-culture artefacts, left behind by Theocritus and Virgil, provide a basis on which to explore the idea of nature in western society and its representation in artistic and cultural products, at a time when climate scientists have given us permission to panic. In Extinction Room, the artefacts take the form of recorded sounds of extinct and endangered animal species, collected over several decades by the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Xeno-canto Foundation, and arranged, edited and sonically altered by AGF. The sound installation is activated by performers who recount the stories of these species. Scientific narratives of extinction interweave with myths. Folk songs and dances are brought to life. The emotional load – the sorrow – is intensified by the performers who lead the audience through these traumatic experiences of loss, and of losses yet to come.

In this version of Extinction Room young voices from the neighbourhood and young dance professionals will join the performers of Hopeless. in recounting an ever growing collection of extinction stories in order to bring new perspectives about extinction. This invitation expands the practice outside our group and independent dance scene in order pose the question about the common future of our society.