May - June 8, 2019

Performers: Erika Hansen, Megan Mayer, Felipe Mafasoli, and Charles Campbell
Installation: Jess Kiel-Wornson
Sound design and original music: Mike Hallenbeck

A piece about apocalypse, chaos, and hope. A taxonomy of failed utopian impulses. A cycle of nostalgic atrophy. The urge to transcend cyclic utopian collapse. Tenderness, danger, migration, apocalyptic beauty. Drawing into rather sharp relief our cultural desire for a simple, singular answer. Toward a pursuit of possibility.

Inspired by research into the nature of time and the combination of dystopian narratives in popular culture with resurgent political and social activism, Birds of the Future explored what it is to recognize one’s place in a seemingly unending cycle of utopian impulses and dystopian realities. Rather than revel in a bleak aesthetic of apocalypse, Birds of the Future wrestled with the possibilities revealed by chaos — among them, a new understanding of time in which each moment is open to the possibilities of a new way of being. For this performance, no audience member had a clear view of all parts of the performance at all times: all views were obstructed.

“We are thinking about endings. We are living in the space of that edge right now. I want to imagine a world where we can use and reuse and remake and re-imagine. I don’t mean on a consumer level, I mean in a poetic and practical sense, how we might reorganize the vast detritus of the world to build some semblance of safety and then pleasure.” – Designer Jess Kiel-Wornson

30 seats each night. Obstructed views only.