“Zazu Dreams” confronts climate, social justice questions

Cautionary fable performed at Boulder’s Fiske Planetarium

Even though everybody poops, it’s still gross — generally speaking.

Not for dung beetles, though. Those bugs are sustained by poop. They ball-up animal dung, eat it and use it as a breeding chamber. (The ladies are into it. It’s where they nest their eggs and hatch a new generation that’s born into feces.)

Then there’s the exact same beetle that is considered sacred by ancient Egyptians when it goes by its other name: scarab. The dung beetle’s likeness would adorn jewelry, amulets, tomb paintings, manuscripts, hieroglyphic inscriptions and impression seals.

Same insect, contradicting views.

“The dung beetle is very much a symbol of waste; it’s seen as a disgusting creature,” said Cara Judea Alhadeff, Boulder author of “Zazu Dreams: Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle, A Cautionary Fable for the Anthropocene Era.” “But it does what it does out of love. It attracts its mate with a piece of poop, which many see as the antithesis of love.”

“Zazu Dreams” isn’t about dung — it’s a cautionary fable created by a mother-daughter team that confronts the realities of man’s impact on nature, while asking readers to question their own sustainability and consumption. The cross-cultural message is relayed by an illustrated Sephardic Arab-Jewish boy and more than 400 detailed footnotes.

Alhadeff and a group of performers will adapt excerpts from the book into a multicultural performance at 7 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday at the University of Colorado’s Fiske Planetarium. The performance, “Zazu Dreams: A Declaration of Interdependence, A Love Story,” which Alhadeff calls “dialogue, science

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