The Spreading Ground (2016) was a month-long series of open rehearsals and performances at Hansen Dam, regularly scheduled practice for moving through Los Angeles as a site of transformative power and environmental hazard, commissioned by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. This performance practice sought to connect ideals of natural beauty with precarity, and the infrastructure that holds this balance in place at inhuman, yet profoundly accessible, scales. The open rehearsal process resulted in the composition of a simple text score for movement and voice, a libretto that was painted across costumes like banners, and a collection of electronic sounds composed for a large group of bluetooth speakers. The Spreading Ground culminated in a dramatic walking meditation by a chorus of fifty performers, each performing a discrete part of the score, spread along the two-mile length of Hansen Dam with audience interspersed and constantly moving alongside.
The Spreading Ground – video
The Spreading Ground
The Spreading Ground – Sketches
The Spreading Ground
Libretto:
A:
1.
warm air meets cold dove
rushing down denuded slopes
2.
cloud burst over higher
elevation inland moving
3.
cloud saving for summit
gullies feed canyons
4.
Los Angeles River east
San Gabriel River west
5.
stay between levees
city of a thousand rivers
6.
deposit silt
soak below
flow to sea
7.
fertile beds alluvial
sediment plain lush
8.
hydraulic order
unruly river
smooth out uneven
9.
uncertain rainfall
un-flowing as planned
10.
steep slopes
small ranges
plain to pinnacle
11.
tectonic moves
rise like himalayas
12.
clay so soft
forms to hands
13.
chapparal blazes
flames regenerate
14.
foothill flip bucket
predict the slide
15.
flood flow
channel volume
levee strength
16.
forbidden territory
freeway overpasses
17.
return sycamore
return oak
return cottonwood
18.
riparian civil disobedience
mental maps of southern california
19.
no signs of life
sun high in the sky
20.
raindrops vary
places rain does not reach
21.
rage with flood
dry in the sun
22.
oranges, acorns, currants
blackberries, gillyflower, jessamine, tuberose
23.
water privilege
riparian rights
24.
mountains riding clouds
mountains walking on water
25.
mountains walking like humans
forward backward on water
26.
no original water
no common water
27.
water commons
superstructure
matrix of water
28.
underground river
subterranean streams
flowing in channels
29.
beneath the river bed
underground water
30.
ditch drag thicket
channel concrete
31.
downslope impermeable
layer gathering
32.
hillside saturate glob
too dry to flow
33.
detritus cones
inundation zone
34.
concrete articulation
river future
35.
improve water quality
enhance riparian
36.
industrial whiff ripping
stately heron
37.
water trickle
earthen low-flow
38.
persuade the public
the river exists
39.
brutal trip
pioneer drag
western settlement
40.
abundance of water
from elsewhere
not here
41.
chalky river relocated
snake of water
42.
artesian well driller
ditch tender
43.
save your head from water
save your head from fire
44.
water underground
spreading ground
45.
rainfall to fill
sandy bed
capricious cloud
B (shared):
Flood Control
Spill Away
Flows Within Boundaries
Spreading Ground
C (shared):
cloud
flow
away
soak
freeway
—–
flood
worlds
water
you