Alternate Title Sixty-Nine Degrees South
Premiere New York Premiere
Production Language English
Country of Origin United States
Description Sixty-nine degrees south latitude, threshold of Antarctica, foreboding and cold. In an attempt to cross the continent, explorer Ernest Shackleton and crew have been shipwrecked, and now-through the work of Phantom Limb marionette maker and composer Erik Sanko and set designer Jessica Grindstaff (both at BAM with More Than Four, 2007 Next Wave)-they emerge before us in the snow.
Grammy-nominated junk-rock band Skeleton Key performs live as the puppets-animated by ghostly figures on stilts-navigate the forsaken plain. A cryptic geologic language accompanies their journey, composed of field recordings layered over a gripping minimalist score (recorded by Kronos Quartet). As astral projections bathe the audience in a long polar night, hope rises with the sun and a darkly beautiful vision of the Antarctic future unfolds in this tale of survival at the end of the earth.
Identifier 2011f.01075