Catapult Dance premiers its first evening length work, HOMELAND at the Erickson Theater in Capitol Hill, September 26-29, 2019. Showtimes are 8pm for Thursday through Saturday, 5pm for Sunday. Ticket prices are $25 General Admisssion, $18 Student/Senior.

This program is an exploration of boundaries: personal, emotional, social. Using interconnected vignettes, each section addresses unique aspects of the idea of humans and barriers. Each section might stand alone as a single work, but the whole of them build a common vision, much like a book of short stories.  Through this work we hope to spur conversations about the ways in which we chose to divide ourselves, creating smaller and smaller communities of like-minded people, restricting our ability to see our shared humanity. Our goal is to open up the possibility for change in each individual that attends the concert.

The construction of barriers to keep people out or in is as ancient as human civilization. Only the people have changed. Ancient walls were built for defensive purposes, to keep danger out. The Berlin Wall was the first to keep people in. Now we have gated communities, fenced yards, and hedges around our homes delineating our property, offering us a false sense of security.We make artificial divisions everywhere. Our minds naturally divide the world into me and not-me, us and them. Facing a common danger makes us feel community. Knowing who we are makes us feel secure.Once we label someone, we don’t bother to look more closely and we lose our chance to see how much of our basic humanness we share.

Using dense foam blocks cut to look like concrete building blocks, we shape and define the performance space for each section. Working collaboratively, Catapult’s performers use physical research, story-telling and dance to create and relate our visions in a non-linear fashion, leaving an open space for the audience to fill with their own thoughts, impressions and personal history.