Photo credit: Amanda Reintjes
Photo by Kat Berger/Alverno Presents
Manifest Destiny! (there was blood on the saddle)
2010-2011
A psychedelic Wild West Show inspired by the language of Cormac McCarthy and William S. Burroughs as well as the Spaghetti Westerns of the 1950’s and 60’s to confront myths of the frontier in Detroit and the legacy of American Expansionism in white bodies. Manifest Destiny! is equal parts Wild West Show and cultural scavenger hunt, weaving spectacle, vaudevillian comedy, live music, cowboy poetry, campfire songs, puppetry, dreamlike imagery, and the smell of frying bacon into a visceral collage. Using the script of Wild Bill’s original Wild West show like a prospector’s map, The Hinterlands have dug up a scathing passion play for the “frontier.”
Featuring Richard Newman, Liza Bielby, Eleni Zaharopoulos, Steven DeWater, and Dave Sanders. Directed by Richard Newman with Movement Direction by Liza Bielby; Design by Anthony Cerrato. Produced by Alverno Presents.
Performed at: Jam Handy Building (Detroit, MI) and Alverno Presents (Milwaukee, WI)