Facilitator

CHANTAL BILODEAU is a Montreal-born, New York-based playwright whose work focuses on the intersection of storytelling and the climate crisis. She is the founder of the Arts & Climate Initiative and in her capacity as artistic director, has spearheaded local and global initiatives for nearly two decades, getting the theatre and educational communities, as well as audiences in the U.S. and abroad, to engage in climate action through programming that includes live events, talks, publications, workshops, artist convenings, and a worldwide distributed theatre festival. Her plays have been presented in a dozen countries and translated into French, Norwegian, Greek, and Portuguese. Her main project is a series of eight plays – including, to date, Sila (2014), Forward (2016), and No More Harveys (2022) – that look at the social and environmental changes taking place in the eight Arctic states. She is a Creative Core member of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. In 2019, she was named one of “8 Trailblazers Who Are Changing the Climate Conversation” by Audubon Magazine.

Co-Facilitators

JULIA LEVINE is a New York-based theatre maker and social worker. She is artistic producer of the Arts & Climate Initiative, where she organizes with Climate Change Theatre Action; collaborates on the Arts & Climate Incubator; produces live events; and helps to cultivate the ever-growing network of climate artists. She has spoken on public panels with sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson and for various productions of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, about the role of arts in social and climate action. She has organized for environmental justice with the youth climate organization Sunrise Movement, and her original performance work has been seen at Dixon Place, HERE, and Wild Project. Her ten-minute play, Our Food At Work, is published as part of Some Scripts Literary Magazine’s inaugural issue. Julia brings drama therapy into her social work practice to address mental health implications of the climate crisis with individuals and groups. She completed her Master’s of Social Work at Hunter College, and is a member of Climate Psychology Alliance of North America and the North American Drama Therapy Association.

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GIGI BUDDIE is an interdisciplinary artist and climate activist currently based in the Bay Area on the traditional homelands of the Coast Miwok People. She is a graduate of Pomona College and holds a degree in theatre performance and environmental analysis. Both her professional and personal pursuits converge at the intersection of art and climate justice. As an American Indian of Tongva and Mescalero descent, GiGi creates and contributes to art that uplifts marginalized voices, and shares stories of creation, resilience, and beauty from frontline communities. In 2021, she attended the United Nations Climate Summit (COP26) as an NGO delegate for a project that highlighted Indigenous climate leaders from the Global South who were (and still are) championing resilience in the face of the climate crisis. GiGi has worked as a writer and an assistant producer for the Arts and Climate Initiative, as well as an organizer for Climate Change Theatre Action. She has spoken as a panelist on Indigenous sovereignty and climate advocacy panels with ACI and The Tenure Facility.

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Guest Speakers

Guest speakers will be announced as they are confirmed. To see guest speakers from previous Incubators, visit the 2019 Incubator in New York and the 2019 Incubator in Alaska.

NIKKI LINDT is a Brooklyn based interdisciplinary artist, whose work focuses on environmental stewardship and people’s relationships to natural areas. Lindt regularly collaborates with researchers as a part of interdisciplinary research teams. She currently has ongoing projects/residencies at field stations including: Toolik Field Station, Alaska, Abisko Scientific Research Station, Sweden, and the Urban Field Station in New York City. Lindt’s work has been widely exhibited, as public art, in museums and in galleries. These include, NYCs’ Prospect Park, the United Nations in Rome, the Hudson River Museum and Robischon Gallery. Her work has been covered by: The Financial Times, Forbes, NPR’s Here and Now, CBS Sunday Morning, and NY Magazine. Lindt regularly speaks publicly about her work and has been awarded the 2022 NYC Urban Field Station Collaborative Arts Program residency, the Pollack-Krasner Grant, Brooklyn Arts Council Grant, Puffin Foundation Grant and the Environmental Cultural Award, Milieudienst, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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Jackie Rivera (they/them) is an actor, performance-maker and Creative Survivalist. Their work seeks to celebrate and foster artistic practice for people who don’t identify as “Artists” by cultivating artistic value in everyday things. They’ve been a bicycle touring theater artist serving for 5 years as Associate Artistic Director of Agile Rascal Bicycle Touring Theater, devising new musicals inspired by climate change. They have a Masters in Performance and Performance Studies from Pratt Institute where they teach in the Saturday Art School program, and where they created a DIY puppet short inspired by their time living in a van and their queer super egos, Tiny Dyke; Van Life. They are also exploring their connection to culture and land by creating an eco-tourism zine based on their bike tours in Puerto Rico, called Boriken Bike Tour.