When a whale dies in the cold tank of a marine park, what happens after that?In the winter of 2024, Da Bai, a captive beluga whale in Hangzhou, China, sank to the bottom of his tank. His gigantic body was then left unceremoniously on a waste hill behind the marine park, ready to be forgotten.Beginning with the testimony of his last keeper, How Do You Bury A Whale unearths a gripping true story of loss, grief, love, and the human need to remember something more-than-human—from six feet under.Through the story of this majestic and ephemeral marine life, this experimental documentary theatre piece digs into our relationship with the more-than-human world. Weaving together interview verbatim, physical exploration, sonic experiments, and poetic storytelling, the work lingers on an event that haunts us long after. It asks: how do we process a loss, which we are both responsible for and the victims of, how do we carry on our human life with ecological grief and ethical failure that exceeds our comprehension, and how can we show love and remembrance in the act of burying?
