The Rewilding Cycle

The Wastelands is an original experimental folk opera exploring ecological grief and first in Open Flame’s “Rewilding Cycle.” Guided by a queer, skeletal guide, the audience travels through a post-industrial landscape, a tragicomic journey through the seven stages of grief. The Wastelands toured from June-October, 2016, in mostly urban areas along the Great Lakes basin. Open Flame Theatre (fka Children of the Wild) performed The Wastelands along industrial shorelines, in sacrifice zones, and in at-risk environments to bring audiences to places directly impacted by industrial expansion.

The Garden (part two) is an experimental opera about the roots of systemic oppression in all its forms. Western civilization attempts to control nature in order to utilize it. The Garden investigates white-supremacist/colonizer culture’s desire to beautify/manage/control nature (including people) and reveals the horror that ensues when it does.

The premise of the operatic triptych “The Rewilding Cycle”, is that our efforts to control the natural world is what destroys it, and us. Part One, The Wastelands, asks the question: how do you find hope when faced with the despair of social oppression and environmental devastation? Part two, The Garden asks the question: With hope in hand, what is it that we must confront in order to liberate our world and our hearts? Part three, The Wild, will explore what is possible with liberated, diversified, autonomous, and self-willed inner and outer landscapes.