Sweet Land by The Industry

The company that created Invisible Cities and Hopscotch, now brings you a grotesque historical pageant that disrupts the dominant narrative of American identity.

“Sweet Land” is America before and after colonization. Kind of. There is the native population, the Host community. There are the Arrivals. But there is also the land, its Nature and mystical spirit. The Hosts recognize that spirit, but even they have an uneasy relationship with it. The Arrivals are, of course, despoilers.”

“A head-spinning abstraction of colonialism and whitewashed mythology, “Sweet Land” has been described by its creators as “an opera that erases itself.” It achieves an effect not unlike that of traveling back in time to witness the first Thanksgiving, then returning to the present to hear its story warped through the traditional, wholesome retelling.”

SELECTED PRESS
New York Times: An Opera About Colonialism Shows How History Warps
LA Times: Opera in an L.A. park examines what it means to be American