Are you satisfied with the environment around you? 

Absolutely and absolutely not. From a window overlooking the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv, watching the surf pound the breakwaters by the Marina its too easy to imagine the coastline, which at the moment is a mix of natural beauty and human innovation/intervention, obliterated by a sea level 2 to 6 feet higher than it is right now, and to realize that all that we have built is at risk, as are an almost countless number of species whose survival is utterly intertwined by the choices we are, and are not, making. The consequences of mass unconsciousness -- the simple act of daily living that adds incrementally to the problem -- couldn't be more apparent in the simple act of watching the water. Turning away from that window and looking into the hotel room is to see both the problem and the solution at play. Whether for genuine concern for the environment, simple economics or a bow to the PR value of being "sustainable" you can see the elements of change in the re-use of towels, the changing of incandescent bulbs for fluorescent ones, the auto motion sensors which control the lighting that activates as you enter and leave a room and a countless number of small changes entering the marketplace. These tiny steps add to major savings, and, more, are a first sign that we are truly able to change our way of doing things to be responsible just as we changed them to be irresponsible.  

The absolutely not, though, lies in the fact that small changes, while important, are not enough, and that the major changes must come from a Macro standpoint -- often at the direction of local, state and federal governments around the world -- and those are the places I worry about the most. We are moving far too slowly in these areas, and the consequences of that inaction are overwhelming. Yes, the marketplace can drive change, but when Texas oil companies try to upend California legislation because they don't want to adapt to the possibilities and the problems of their business model then we haven't even begun to understand what we have to do.  

You have a clear sense that, person-to-person we are starting to "get it." From a micro standpoint its changing. And so in that way I am satisfied. But on a Macro level, at the level where modest change is inadequate, I'm not satisfied at all. We all, each of us, must do more to make clear a need for and a will to change at the top. To me the bottleneck right now lies in the House and Senate, and in many State chambers, who are too beholden to the cash from the handful of companies which dominate the debate. And that's just for the US standpoint.... 

2. If not, what steps are you willing to take to improve it? 

No matter how many steps we are taking at CityDance, and as individuals, its hard to ever feel that we are doing enough. We have set a series of organization-wide goals, some of them within a business model -- recycling, carbon offsets, work-from-home, credits/bonuses for mass transit -- to art. The art, specifically, focuses on two areas. The first is in education, where our school program this year, which we take out into the community, is called "Dancing on One Planet." Its an environmental message for elementary school children wrapped in a dance concert about three school kids and a mound of trash that comes alive. The message is recycling and reducing the junk we put out into the world day-in-day-out.  

The second is an annual concert series called "Warmer," and is dedicated to presenting dances which ask questions about how we are treating the planet, how we are treating each other in terms of questions of environmental responsibility, and what we can/must do about it. We commission choreographers from both the States and other places in the world (Chile, France, the Philippines) to make dances on these questions and present them in a wrapper called "Warmer." 

We're performing at Earth Day again this year on the National Mall. I'm going over to the Dead Sea on Wednesday to tape an Earth Day introduction and message from one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet for broadcast on Earth Day and on activities on the 18th also on the Mall.  

We hope to start a partnership next year with the National Zoo, the Department of State and communities around the world gathering folk tales and cultural legends that are about, or involve, animal species which are endangered, threatened or extinct. The idea is to make a program of dances, music and storytelling based on them to present in schools, in performance and, hopefully, around the world, to call to attention our deep, deep connection to the earth and the consequences to us culturally, and in our collective identities, should we lose these species more and more. It really all started with the Year of the Tiger coming in China this year.