Angels Multidisciplinary show for one actor, poetry, soundtrack, video and light Daïkokucho Productions Los Angeles James Sandoval [email protected] Geneva Cosima Weiter [email protected] www.avec-productions.com Angels Production file Distribution p. 3 Rationale p. 5 Work process p. 7 Immigration Power architecture: the family house p. 8 A city - image Los Angeles: a future multicultural megalopolis? p. 9 Artistic internship: work schedule p.11 Interviews Playwriting for the show Integration testing for footage under different scenographic assumptions Shooting the footage Playwriting p.12 Sound recordings and processing options Scenography creation and final plan Angels, multidisciplinary creation p.14 Synopsis Multifaceted language Actors’ appearance, staging Playwriting p.15 Soundtrack Sound staging Shots and video broadcasting Scenography p.16 The Compagnie_Avec p.18 Biographies p.19 Press clippings p.21 2 Angels Multidisciplinary creation Design and staging Alexandre Simon, Cosima Weiter Text and staging Cosima Weiter Actor Pierre Isaïe Duc Music Blaine Reininger (Tuxedomoon) Sound staging Philippe de Rham Video creation Alexandre Simon Video assistant James Sandoval Lighting Julien Talpain Scenography Cie_Avec Administration and distribution Daïkokucho Productions 3 4 (...) a radical structural analysis of the city can only acquire social force if it is embodied in an alternative experiential vision - in this case, of the huge Los Angeles Third World whose children will be the Los Angeles of the next millennium. In this emerging, poly-ethnic and poly-lingual society - with Anglos a declining minority - the structural conditions of intervention in popular culture are constantly in flux. Mike Davis in City of Quartz, Excavating the Future in Los Angeles Rationale Our previous work trip through the United States revealed that its white community is gradually becoming a minority. Indeed, white population presents a relatively low birth rate compared to other communities. Then again our trip made us feel us like stopping at a specific spot and staying there for a while, taking in the atmosphere and grasping much more than passers-by do. Los Angeles is precisely the quintessential immigration city. For Americans, it represents the end of the road and where the famous Highway 66 stops. A city shrouded in such a powerful myth that people come there to make their dreams come true. Indeed, films directed and produced on site are shared worldwide through Hollywood films, television series and novels, including thrillers. This led us to make these people who immigrate to Los Angeles our subject while engaging with the city’s diverse communities. On this basis, we could discuss the City of Angels and thus decipher the signs that contain the seeds of its future. Therefore, we wish to address the future of the American dream as immigrants face the harsh reality of the metropolis. What living solutions can they rely upon in this new world? What influence do they have on the city today? How will they build the Los Angeles of tomorrow? 5 6 Work process As for Funkhaus, Marzahn and Highway, our previous shows, our work begins with documentary research, and an immersion in the city’s culture, as well as various assumptions to be reality-checked during our artistic internship in Los Angeles. We will identify suitable locations in the area and conduct interviews with members of different communities while shooting our footage. Using these elements, we should be able to challenge our staging approach to ensure its consistency with our findings. Immigration To discuss Los Angeles and its future, we must consider the communities shaping the city, not only because LA is one of the points towards which migrants worldwide converge nowadays, but also because, from an historical standpoint, it remains the sole American metropolis founded by settlers from various sources, including Mexican, Native American, European, and people of African origin. Thus, this rich cultural mix has governed the city at its very foundation. Today’s migrants often come from Mexico, Central America and Latin America. They are so numerous that the city is gradually turning into a huge Hispanic community. Regardless, the population is infinitely more diverse than one might imagine. Indeed, a Chinese community settled down at the end of the nineteenth century and the Japanese neighborhood Little Tokyo saw its founding in 1910. The Asian-American community of Los Angeles also includes Koreans and Filipinos. Since World War II, the immigrant flow from Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Pacific Islands, South East Asia, Thailand, Cambodia, Samoa and Vietnam nurtured numerous Asian enclaves in various parts of Los Angeles. To these, we should add migrants from Asia, Israelis, Armenians, Iranians, Russians and nationals of the former Eastern bloc. Thanks to these different migration waves, Los Angeles now hosts a greater ethnic diversity than New York. The rationale for this steady migratory flow to Los Angeles is indeed multi-faceted. Some come from far away, fleeing a totalitarian regime, violence or poverty in their countries of origin. Some migrate to work in the sex or pornography industry. There are also immigrants from interior US states, running away from their families, lack of prospects and one-horse towns. Many come as students. There are those who come to play music, and those who come to approach movie studios, and blend in with a white and wealthy population: Los Angeles, or their own perception thereof. Finally, there are those who come just for the waves of the Pacific Ocean. In fact, recent migrants often fill - whether legally or not - unskilled jobs. 7 Power architecture: the family house We chose to analyze the family house as an expression of the economic power architecture and flagship real estate product. Indeed, from the late nineteenth century, Angelinos chose the family house with garden as the preferred residential solution because Anglo-Saxon Protestant people, driven by a “pastoral” ideal, yearned to maintain proximity to natural areas and focus their social life on the family unit, conferring it an important domestic space. This initial choice influenced the city’s layout and led to a sense of unlimited growth of the greater city. Developers quickly understood that they could market the open air, sun and dry heat of Los Angeles by dividing it into small plots and heavily advertising its qualities in less temperate regions of the country. As newcomers came, they were aggressively encouraged to buy land. As it happens, this way of living proved extremely expensive in terms of space and often involved the use of individual means of transportation: the automobile. But L.A. has grown exponentially and urban transport has become a permanent headache as shown by the ever-clogged LA highways. From these observations, it follows that social relations do not arise from street or outdoors interaction - streets are mere traffic lanes at best - but flourish between the walls of family houses for the most part. The resulting scarcity of public spaces leads in turn to social exclusion and the retreat and isolation of numerous ethnic communities. Thus, we note the crucial influence that favoring family houses had on the lifestyle of the inhabitants. It is precisely for this reason that we plan to shoot in family houses, which are at once the seat of the privacy for the people we will meet, and the premise on which all other Angelinos’ life choices rest. A city - image As Michael Sorkin has emphasized. “L.A. is probably the most mediated town in America, nearly unviewable save through the fictive scrim of its mythlogizers”. Mike Davis in City of Quartz, Excavating the Future in Los Angeles The myth of Los Angeles has become global, propelled by the unparalleled media deployment operated by the “image makers”. According to Mike Davis, this cultural lobby aims to better position the city by advertising to foreign investors and the wealthiest potential emigrants. This is why the idealized portrait of the City of Angels is so important. Historically, Los Angeles’s culture has aimed to create an image of the city through its artistic creators. LA is thus the city of Hollywood studios. Its inhabitants are predominantly white and wealthy. Its higher education institutions are among the most prestigious in the world. Its mild climate and the ocean nearby make life particularly enticing. This paradise-like portrait is undoubtedly driven by the will to arouse desire, and the fact that it appears as the city where anything can happen. The continuous migratory inflow is evidence enough in that respect. The city’s attractiveness is so strong that even the less positive aspects of Angeline life, such as gang violence, are construed as myths and fed into this fantasy scene. Thus, we intend to challenge this somewhat artificial image of Los Angeles, face the media distortion field and build our own image of LA. 8 Los Angeles: a future multicultural megalopolis? This may be well be because Los Angeles is a city of immigrants, a city that fills every day with newcomers and where the past is soon gone and forgotten. For many, indeed, the past lies beyond the ocean, far to the south or inland to the east. Their motto: “We come here to build a brighter future for ourselves.” One day, however, the future of all those moving to LA will directly shape the city’s prospects. The face of Los Angeles will be hence a multicultural one. That being said, we cannot foresee whether the diversity of cultures living in Los Angeles will be a source of conflict or the engine of a multiethnic culture. 9 10 Angels artistic internship Directors Alexandre Simon, Cosima Weiter Footage staging Alexandre Simon, Cosima Weiter Text Cosima Weiter Shooting of footage for stage projection Staging Alexandre Simon, Cosima Weiter Casting, Production assistant, Sound recordist, James Sandoval Administration and distribution Daïkokucho Productions Interviews Questions will focus on the image that these persons had of Los Angeles before arrival, the reasons for leaving their place of birth and their daily life today.