A Conversation With Josh Fox (THE EDGE OF NATURE)

While Josh Fox might be best known for his documentaries – from 2010’s Oscar-nominated surprise hit Gasland right through to 2017’s Awake, A Dream From Standing Rock (made in collaboration with Doug Good Feather and Myron Dewey, who also served as EP on this latest) – filmmaking for the veteran director-writer-environmental activist has always been more means to an end than conscious pursuit. Indeed, Fox is a live performer at heart, and continues to serve as the producing artistic director of International WOW Company, which he founded nearly thirty years back (and has since toured with throughout Europe, Asia and of course the US). Which makes The Edge of Nature, a documentary theater piece that had its world-premiering run at La MaMa in NYC, an artistic culmination rather than diversion. (A critically-acclaimed one at that. Reviews even included a “great work” quote from Bernie Sanders, who Fox wrote parts of the Democratic platform on energy and environment for in 2016; Fox also receives funding from The Sanders Institute.) It’s also a wildly ambitious, and surprisingly successful, attempt to connect seemingly disparate subjects: long Covid – which prompted Fox to seek healing in his beloved Pennsylvania woods, isolated with only a camera and a variety of forest friends; the Native American genocide (of which the late Myron Dewey of the Walker River Paiute Tribe was a survivor); the Holocaust (Fox’s father fled the Nazis as a child, thus making him a survivor); and ongoing environmental devastation (save for the period of the “anthropause,” the first six to eight months of pandemic lockdown that resulted in worldwide emissions being reduced enough to actually halt climate change. Yes, the environment can survive if we prioritize). The multimedia spectacle likewise includes an 11-member ensemble from International WOW, who along with the banjo-playing Fox, use American folk music (score by musician-composer-producer Dougie Bowne of the Lounge Lizards) to guide us through the first-person documentary journey that unfolds onscreen above the stage, hovering like a cinematic conscience for us all.

To read my interview visit Hammer to Nail.