LA Settlement

(2014)

LOS ANGELES / THE BOX GALLERY
RESEARCH ON AN URBAN UTOPIAN COMMUNITY IN COLLABORATION WITH LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT

Settlement searches for the borders of community and time. A new group is born and settles on the banks of blank territory. The performers act as agents that travel through time, exploring unconscious archives of souls from the past.  Time has no barrier. They resurrect the spirits of the disappeared, inhabiting their visions, thoughts and beliefs. This unique constellation of individual minds exiled from reality, reappear to momentarily nestle in the receiving body. Can they find a common ground?

‘Settlement’ is a performance, constructed in three weeks with a group of performers from LAPD and other Angelenos, directed by SOIT. Past ‘Settlement’ projects have been performed in Sydney (Australia), Wellington (New Zealand), Harare (Zimbabwe),Vienna (Austria), Bastia (Corsica). These ‘Settlement’ productions are created and developed through the socio-political-cultural framework specific to each performer and city. Departing from a metaphorical point of reflection that hones in on temporary, self-constructed, self-sufficient homes and villages, whereby the inhabitant’s alternate universe is separate from the modern world; they research transitional, societal settings such as: secluded subcultures, gated communities, refugee camps, detention camps, alternative gatherings, sects…etc.