the earth must be on its back by now (2020-Present)
duration: 1 hour
materials: doorway, 1-2 bodies
The earth must be on its back by now began as a series of scores I wrote while somatically researching the psychogeography of dams and reservoirs along the main stem of the Colorado River. The choreography was set to be performed in the doorway of A401 Gallery. Then it was March 16, 2020, the day of our first rehearsal. And the day that Los Angeles’ Safer at Home emergency order was announced. We never met as a group, and the public performance never occurred.
The choreography morphed: performers were invited from the doorway of the gallery into the doorway of their homes: a familiar architecture now embodying limitation and threat. Our score-based inquiries sprawled over the course of four months and occurred through writing, drawing, video, and sound. Each correspondance started with a request: draw me a map of where you are sheltering. From there, they fluctuated like water, unexpected and at their own pace, as the first months of lockdown dripped and flooded.
And it’s morphed again: now that we are able to be together, to be in public. The earth must be on its back by now has been publicly performed twice: at Midnight’s Watchtower with Lucinda Trask, and at HyperSpace with Woohee Cho. This stage of the project will be completed when I have been able to perform this score publically with each of the original eight performers who performed it privately in their homes in the wake of Los Angeles’ Safer at Home emergency order.