Presented by In Parentheses
Based on Papers by Violaine Schwartz, translated by Christine Gutman (Fern Books)
Directors Danny Bryck & Marion Schoevaert
Filmmaker Irina Patkanian
Photographer Oscar Castillo
Projection Director Young Cheong
Performers Ali Andre Ali, Danny Bryck, Heather Holmes, Mari Vial-Golden, Hussein Smko, Crystal Marie Stewart, Aaron Michael Zook
Choreography Hussein Smko
Music Rude Mechanical Orchestra
Props Designer Theresa Evangelista
PR Maclaine Lowery
Supported by NYSCA and FACE Contemporary Theater, a program of Villa Albertine and FACE Foundation, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States, Washington Square Park Conservancy and PSC-CUNY Research Award Program.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
HOME/LAND examines the United States’ divided political climate around immigration, as well as the lived experiences of immigrants. Performers embody chanting protestors, immigration officers conducting interrogations, and refugees recounting real-life stories. This joyful and powerful theatrical performance is led by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, and culminates in a dance, as images of New Yorkers and refugees are projected on banners. By blurring the lines between demonstration and performance, opposition and support, refugee and citizen, HOME/LAND presents a face-to-face confrontation with the struggle for the right to live in a new home / land.
ABOUT THE TEXT
Violaine Schwartz recorded testimonies of several asylum seekers, originally for a commission from the Besançon National Drama Centre. She met men and women, young and old, all united by the same destiny: the need to flee their homeland. She set herself a constraint: to write from the words spoken, and only from the words spoken. The resulting book, Papers, critically acclaimed in Le Monde and many other media, is a collage of recorded testimonies, cases from the immigration office, calligraphic poems, administrative officialisms and file numbers, the inner thoughts of immigration agents and volunteer hosts, and questions the author poses to us: Is the State the enemy of freedom? Is the Nation a new myth? To be happy, should we be indifferent to the rest of the world?
ABOUT PROJECTIONS
HOME/LAND features video portraits of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, filmed by Irina Patkanian in different refugee camps in Greece and Lebanon, and portraits of New Yorkers by photographer Oscar Castillo. Guerrilla projection mapping, pioneered by artists, has been increasingly embraced by activists as a medium for delivering political messages. With a single high-powered projector, the side of a building can be transformed to a canvas for the cause: visually powerful, but without leaving a trace.
BACKGROUND
HOME/LAND was conceived as a response to the refugee crisis, as seen through the lens of the refugees and the bureaucratic administration. It follows the plight of refugees caught in ongoing proxy wars in the West Asia, South America, and Africa, the routes they travel to escape violence, and the stories they carry with them.
Today, we are witnessing the highest levels of displacement ever on record. An unprecedented 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from their homes: 5.5 million from Syria, 2.5 million from Afghanistan, 2.3 million from South Sudan… The Names of the Dead List records 40,555 people who died on the way to Europe between 1993 and 2020. On average twenty people are forced to leave their homes every minute as a result of conflict or persecution. In North America, the refugee crisis at the US/Mexico border is ongoing, with an exodus of people fleeing violence and political and economic crises in Central America, caravans of asylum seekers being harassed and hunted along the way, the separation of children and parents, and the mass arrests and prolonged imprisonment. In 2021 it was reported that US Border Patrol arrested approximately 1.7 million people from Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
IN PARENTHESES
is a nonprofit New York based film and theater company founded by Marion Schoevaert and Irina Patkanian in 1994. Their films have played at more than a hundred festivals, including Ann Arbor, STARZ Denver, Black Maria, Palm Springs, DOC NYC, and many others. Their plays have been performed at Lincoln Center, Ohio Theater, and 59E59 Theater in New York; Seoul Arts Center, Korea; and Theatre Dijon Bourgogne in France; among others. Their work received support from NYSCA, CEC Arts Link, Beaumarchais Foundation, the French Cultural Services, and The Jerome Foundation, and critical acclaim from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, Time Out, Theater Magazine, Theater Yale, Le Monde, Korean Theatre Review, and International Herald Tribune. www.inparentheses.org