The Industry’s Story of 2020
How do we even start to encapsulate this bewildering year – one that is marked by so much grieving and uncertainty? As unfathomable events that unfolded throughout 2020 were like works of fiction, bad dreams, or worse. And like all nightmares we all had to wake up, and for most of us we also had to get to work on recovering and reckoning. We invite you to read our story of 2020, full of challenges, triumphs, encouragement, and hope!
The Story of Sweet Land
On February 29, 2020, The Industry premiered its most ambitious production to date – Sweet Land – at the LA State Historic Park. The scale and ambition of this project required a three-year development period. It took an incredible group of collaborators to achieve: a creative team of 15 artists, a cast of 37 singers and 24 instrumentalists, and a production team of 52.
“A head-spinning abstraction of colonialism and whitewashed mythology . . .”
– Joshua Barone, The New York Times
Despite stellar reviews and a sold-out run in our first two weeks, COVID-19 shut down the remaining performances – exactly half of the show. We quickly pivoted and brought the ensemble of Sweet Land together for one final impassioned performance to preserve it with cameras as the audience. We then released a Sweet Land video experience on Vimeo where 7,000 viewers have purchased and viewed it online. We are collaborating with KCET / PBS SoCal to create an hour-long documentary about the production that will premiere in September 2021.
We are thrilled that Sweet Land was included in many Best of 2020 lists, including The New Yorker and Los Angeles Times.
“‘Sweet Land,’ more than any other Industry project, redefined opera with its imaginative use of a downtown park and the vast yet refined scope of music . . .”
– Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
Check out our Sweet Land Press Recap for a look back to some notable previews and reviews of the production.
For many Sweet Land was the last live performance they experienced before COVID-19 restrictions were in place. The enthusiasm, support and press coverage for the production and film have bolstered our commitment to keep going in so many ways. This response has honored the live experience, the timely subject matter, and the diverse roster of artists who came together to create this monumental production. We asked the Sweet Land creative team artists to reflect on Sweet Land at the end of this long year. Here’s what they had to say; we hope you find their responses as inspiring and heartening as we did.
“I went into Sweet Land imagining an experience of erasure; I reflect on it at the end of 2020 as a model of survival.”
-Yuval Sharon, co-director and The Industry Artistic Director
“Sweet Land brought so many new artists into my life. So many new ways of collaboration and world- building. With all ruptures of 2020, I am grateful for Sweet Land, for the abundance of this land, aki, this beautiful earth.”
–Aja Couchois Duncan, librettist
“Sweet Land is located in the alternate universe of hope.”
-Raven Chacon, Composer
“As a new immigrant, I am grateful for this land. Sweet Land unveils that layer of truth for me. Perhaps like many others, Sweet Land was the last live show for me this year. An auspicious pause that also made us think, recharge, and most importantly, re-examine the field and much more beyond. Sweet Land brings a new probability of collaborations, and I’m sure when we meet again, this model of collaboration will carry us through many new roads ahead.”
–Du Yun, Composer
“Sweet Land taught me that opera can be an artform that breaks open stories, conventions and barriers to embolden expressions of truth.”
– Tanya Orellana, scenic designer
“Sweet Land is what courage and ambition together look like.”
-Jeanette Oi Yew, production designer
“To understand Sweet Land is to understand community. How do we transform ancestral anguish into collective healing? It’s alchemy.”
–Carlo Maghirang, scenic designer
“Sweet Land is the recognition of a collective myth preserved under glass and the responsibility of building a myth that can shatter the whole damned thing.”
-Cannupa Hanska Luger, co-director and co-costume designer
“It’s wild that a story of things being torn apart required so much collaboration. Perhaps Sweet Land, as an artistic work that looks at history, provides us with a means of working for our future. The discord that we have inherited and still make, can be tuned into something approaching accord if we are willing to work together toward a common goal. It will involve suspending egos, holding difficult conversations, pushing our creativity, and committing to a vision that we can make something beyond our individual interests, along with the faith that someone will want to see such an idea reach fruition.”
-Douglas Kearney, librettist
Our Financial Story (it’s not all bad!)
It will be no surprise to say we operate on a razor-thin margin. This keeps us nimble and ambitious, but also maxes out our small staff and dedicated board of directors. Sweet Land was difficult to fundraise for. It was a complex and amphorous project, and by opening night, we didn’t quite meet our fundraising goals. And then, of course, we were shut down. After the generous donations of tickets, we still lost $170,000 of ticket income we desperately needed. Also, we depend on the success of these productions to build momentum in our fundraising which was difficult with only half of our expected audience experiencing the show. Despite the loss, we depleted our savings and paid every single artist and contractor engaged in Sweet Land.
We then aggressively maximized all resources available to us to stabilize the organization and implemented various fundraising and income-generating strategies. We released a Sweet Land video experience, we recovered 43% of the ticket sales for canceled shows, we secured $235,400 worth of project and organizational grants and secured $181,000 in SBA loans.
This enthusiastic support from individuals, foundations, and government agencies sent a clear message: Our supporters will not let The Industry will not disappear from the arts and civic landscape. We expect to end the year with a net deficit of approximately $30,000. This financial feat makes us incredibly proud of our community, institutional funders, and staff, and board determination.
Writing the Story of 2021 – It’s Time to Grow and Evolve!
We will continue to develop bold new LIVE programming for 2021/2022 and support artists in LA.
“Post pandemic”, the innovative strategies we have developed will no longer be seen as a novelty or idiosyncratic, but rather as essential and tactical approaches to making performance in public with an audience. Our methodology includes using outdoor/public space for re-framing performance, shrinking audience size and shifting duration to explore scale and intimacy, and increasing audience movement for more agency or freedom. Our work is made for these uncertain times. We have faith that our flexibility, responsiveness, adaptability, and priority for ideas over infrastructure is what makes our work break boundaries and thrive in new territory.
Over the past ten years, The Industry has earned a reputation for being one of the country’s most innovative arts organizations. The Industry begins its next ten years with a new vision to transcend the founder-driven model and move into The Industry’s next stage of organizational and artistic growth. We will create an Artistic Director Collective, hiring two additional Artistic Directors to work with our founder, Yuval Sharon, to lead the organization as a collective.
As of December 14, we closed the Artistic Director Collective nomination process. Our nominating committee of 10 comprises internal (staff and board) and external members (artists, arts workers, and leaders). Together we contacted 56 community members to get nominations. This outreach, in addition to our public announcement, yielded incredible results. The 166 artists nominated for these two positions have surprised and inspired us, and we can’t wait to introduce the new ADs to you in the Spring.
Beyond how this new model will build and strengthen our organization, it also contributes to our community and to the entire arts landscape. We will share our platform with two artists who will continue to push boundaries of opera and interdisciplinary practices in ways we couldn’t have imagined before. We hope to help welcome new voices and points of view that will continue and grow the dialogues and exchanges happening in Los Angeles and nationally. We feel confident that our transformation will help create the exciting conditions needed for new ideas and performance to thrive.
The Industry has led you into the unknown before. With all of our major productions (Invisible Cities, Hopscotch, War of the Worlds, Sweet Land), we start with a concept and then build a team of artists to design the experience collaboratively and in response to contemporary life and culture. And much like this year, where we started is not where we imagined we would end! The past has shown us that the unknown and uncertainty can be powerful starting points for possibility, creativity and change. We look forward to meeting these unpredictable times ahead together.
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