Performances, Auditions, and Rehearsals - Last Man at Willow Run, 2013

Abstract

"Last Man at Willow Run" is an elegiac tone poem for the post-industrial age, shot in the Willow Run Bomber Plant just months before its demolition. A lone figure maps the cavernous spaces of the abandoned plant with his dancing body. The camera charts his progress down mile-long corridors, as he wrestles with forgotten spirits and is cloned into assembly lines of workers past. Set to Richard Strauss's dramatic yet non-narrative orchestral score, Death and Transfiguration, the work has a tragic, ironic edge. It embodies the final throes of an American Dream. Peter Sparling: performer and editor; Pete Leix: videographer; Jacques Mersereau: videographer, studio; and Jeff Alder: lighting, studio.