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These images were taken during a “Sweet Land” rehearsal at Los Angeles State Historic Park, weeks before lockdown. We sat together as an audience on the freshly built wooden stairs, and watched the performance unfold under the sky with limited and moody lighting. Photographing movement under these conditions proved frustrating. But looking at these images now, I see their imperfections in a different light. They generate a sense of nostalgia – for the kind of lived experience that resists being captured.

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“Sweet Land” is a story about the violence and trauma of displacement. The opera does not offer specific answers, but instead fosters a conversation with the silenced and erased voices from the past. Kelci Hahn as Makwa, front-center, is the last host who remembers what happened after her community was destroyed by the spread of arrivals.

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The narrative tells of America’s history of colonization, with the discussion opening up something larger. The premise of “Sweet Land” is an encounter between “hosts” and “arrivals,” which could be metaphors for many iterations of oppression throughout history. It exposes the many ways memory is about power – who has the power to remember and who is forced to forget.

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The arrivals gather around Makwa, who lies wrapped and bound.

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The beginning scene, when the hosts see the arrivals for the first time, landing on the shore.

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Here is the initial encounter when the arrivals are welcomed by the hosts. From this moment forward, the opera, and the audience, is split into two tracks: Feast and Train. As a viewer, you only experience one of the tracks. This means the audience witnesses separate performances and ultimately, have different experiences of the show. This multifocal approach is another element to the process-based work of the project – a structure that rejects monumentalized storytelling.

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The haunting mist projection in the middle of the opera. After this scene, the hosts are subjugated or killed and the arrivals control the land. It is now called Sweet Land.

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Sharon Chohi Kim as Wiindigo, appears as a sign of death — a lingering and silent presence that moves amongst the performers and audience members.