Ecosocialist Horizons announces a convergence with Bread and Puppet Theater

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This August 13th through 15th, Ecosocialist Horizons, an organization dedicated to facilitating the growth and development of the global ecosocialist movement, will hold a convergence in alliance with the world-renowned Bread and Puppet Theater troupe, in their home town of Glover, Vermont.

Opening with a public event on the 13th and moving into two days of artistic workshops, skillshares, forums and assemblies, the goal of the convergence is inspired by many previous gatherings, and also seeks to move beyond them. On their website, Ecosocialist Horizons quotes Zapatista Subcommandante Marcos, who says: “this isn’t about constructing a world rebellion. That already exists. It’s about constructing a space where this rebellion encounters itself, shows itself, begins to know itself.”

In the same way, they go on to say, a global ecosocialist movement already exists. But it needs to encounter itself, show itself, and begin to know itself. By and large, this movement exists in the global South; primarily in South America and South Asia. By organizing convergences, Ecosocialist Horizons hopes to help this movement grow and develop in the global North.

There is a definite affinity between the ecosocialist movement and the Bread and Puppet theater. Known all over the world for their dramatic pageants of giant puppets and for their politically sharp satirical circuses, Bread and Puppet also demonstrates a prefigured approach to life and politics – where freely associated labor in harmony with nature is the foundation for everything – that is central to the practice and vision of ecosocialism.

Building on the momentum of the global uprisings that shook the world in 2011, the goal is to organize ourselves beyond demands and symbolic protests, and toward common visions of a future society worthy of humanity and nature, linking local struggles for important reforms with a revolutionary global horizon. Ecosocialist Horizons welcomes participation at all levels, but attendance is to some degree limited by space and resources.