Sweet Land is an English-language opera by the Los Angeles based opera company The Industry Opera. [1]
The music was composed by Raven Chacon and Du Yun. The poet Douglas Kearney was the librettist for Chacon's parts of the music, and the poet Aja Couchois Duncan wrote the libretto for Yun's sections. It was described by the LA Times as an 'opera of pairs'. [2]
The opera premiered in February 2020 in Los Angeles State Historic Park. The performances took place in and around purpose built, temporary open-air structures, and occurred both at dusk and in the dark (beginning at 6:30pm or 9:00pm respectively). Audience members walked to the different parts of the set. Parts of the opera were performed simultaneously in different locations, meaning that the entire opera could not be seen by any individual audience member in a single performance. [3]
The main theme of the opera is colonialism. Native Americans are represented by the 'Hosts' and colonists as the 'Arrivals'. The Hosts initially welcome the Arrivals, but the Arrivals despoil the land in the name of progress and Manifest Destiny. [4] [5]
In the program, composer Raven Chacon states: "It’s “not an opera about Pilgrims and Indians. That was just the cover of the book to get some of you audience in the door”. [6]
Tales of a Librarian is the first retrospective compilation album by singer/songwriter Tori Amos. Given the option to be involved in the project, Amos elected to take a central role in the production of the collection, released in 2003 on her former label Atlantic Records.
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area.
Electronic colonialism or digital colonialism, sometimes abbreviated to eColonialism, was conceived by Herbert Shiller as documented in his 1976 text Communication and Cultural Domination. In this work, Shiller postulated the advent of a kind of technological colonialism, a system that subjugates Third World and impoverished nations to the will of world powers such as the United States, Japan, and Germany, given the necessary "importation of communication equipment and foreign-produced software". The theory delineates the economical, political, and psychological impact of the mass-media messaging influx, which is unconsciously absorbed through seemingly harmless forms of entertainment. Viewers watching The Office, e.g., vicariously assimilate elements of Western culture and, often unknowingly, accept the imposition of American ideology: alternative lifestyles, cultures, languages, Vernaculars, trends, Fads, political stances, ethnicalities. In this way entire Paradigms impress themselves upon the mind of the viewer.
The Bowery Ballroom is a New York City live-music venue located at 6 Delancey Street in the neighborhood of Bowery in Manhattan. The Bowery Ballroom holds something of a cult status among musicians as well as audiences. Rolling Stone magazine has awarded it #1 Best Club in America. "It's both intimate and grand, with consistently great sound and sightlines, and touches of old-school class, like 84-year-old bronze rails." It has a capacity of 575 people. A detailed scholarly account of the venue and its place in the wider music and cultural history of New York City was published in 2020.
Tonantzin Carmelo is an American actress. She is known for her acting roles in film, TV and stage productions including in the Steven Spielberg miniseries, Into the West, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female in a Television Movie or Miniseries.
Ángel Corella López is a Spanish former principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre and guest artist with The Royal Ballet, Kirov Ballet, New York City Ballet, La Scala and the Australian Ballet among many others.
8 Days of Christmas is the fourth and penultimate studio album and the first and only Christmas album by American R&B girl group Destiny's Child, released on October 30, 2001 by Columbia Records.
Raven Chacon is a Diné artist known as a composer of chamber music, as well as a solo performer of noise music. He was born in Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation, Arizona, United States).
Keith Burstein born 1957 as Keith Burston is an English composer, conductor and music theorist with Russian family origins. He is noted for his fervent championing of tonal music as a valid contemporary composing style.
Zoe Crosher is an American artist and enthusiast whose work has been exhibited widely at institutions such as the Aspen Art Museum, LACMA, MoMA, and the California Museum of Photography. Crosher lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Hershey Felder is a pianist, actor, and playwright known for his portrayals of classical and American composers on the theatrical stage.
Manifest Destiny is an opera composed by Keith Burstein with an English libretto by Dic Edwards. The opera is notable for dealing with the subject of Islamic suicide bombers, and with the ramifications of both the Middle Eastern conflict and the War on Terror.
Douglas Kearney (1974) is an American poet, performer and librettist. Kearney grew up in Altadena, California. His work has appeared in Nocturnes, Jubilat, Beloit Poetry Journal, Gulf Coast, Poetry, Pleiades, Iowa Review, Callaloo, Boston Review, Hyperallergic, Scapegoat, Obsidian, Boundary 2, Jacket2, Lana Turner, Brooklyn Rail, and Indiana Review.In 2012, his and Anne LeBaron's opera, Crescent City, premiered and received widespread praise. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota.
Kim Yoon-seok is a South Korean actor. Kim's theater background first led him to be cast in minor roles on film and television. His breakout role came as the villain in gambling film Tazza: The High Rollers (2006), but it was his performance as an ex-cop turned pimp in surprise hit The Chaser (2008) that brought him acting awards and stardom in his forties. Kim has since become an acclaimed actor in South Korea, with notable performances in films such as Running Turtle (2009), The Yellow Sea (2010), Punch (2011),The Thieves (2012), Hwayi: A Monster Boy (2013), Sea Fog (2014), The Classified File (2015), The Priests (2015) and 1987: When the Day Comes (2017).
Manifest Destiny 2011 is a British opera composed by Keith Burstein with a libretto by Burstein and Dic Edwards. It is a revision of Burstein and Edwards' previous 2003 opera Manifest Destiny and maintains its predecessor's subject matter of Islamic suicide bombers, the ramifications of both the Middle Eastern conflict and the War on Terror.
Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism that seeks to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers. As with all forms of colonialism, it is based on exogenous domination, typically organized or supported by an imperial authority. Settler colonialism is enacted by a variety of means ranging from violent depopulation of the previous inhabitants to more subtle, legal means such as assimilation or recognition of indigenous identity within a colonial framework. Settler colonialism contrasts with exploitation colonialism, which entails a national economic policy of conquering a country to exploit its population as cheap or free labor and its natural resources as raw material. In this way, settler colonialism lasts indefinitely, except in the rare event of complete evacuation or settler decolonization.
Du Yun is a Chinese born composer, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and performance artist. She won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera Angel's Bone, with libretto by Royce Vavrek. She was a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. Du Yun was named as one of the 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 2018, and received a 2019 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition for her work Air Glow.
Beth Morrison is an American producer of contemporary opera.
Cannupa Hanska Luger is a New Mexico-based interdisciplinary artist whose community-oriented artworks address environmental justice and gender violence issues.
The Industry Opera is a Los Angeles-based opera company that creates experimental productions. Founded in 2010 by Artistic Director Yuval Sharon, The Industry has created site-specific projects across Los Angeles.