New Dance and Music Spectacle
at Historic Quarry

Following on the success of “Quarryography” in 2006-07, Opera House Arts (OHA), in collaboration with Maine artists Alison Chase, Mia Kanazawa, and Nigel Chase and local conservation group Island Heritage Trust (IHT), is proud to present the world premiere of a new “story at the quarry” August 3-8, 2010. “Q2: Habitat,” like “Quarryography” before it, is an original multidiscipline performance work commissioned and produced by Opera House Arts at IHT’s historic Settlement Quarry (granite) in Stonington.

“Q2: Habitat” is the story of a place —Stonington’s Settlement Quarry —and of its inhabitants–porcupines, herons, humans, machines—throughout time. It is the universal story of how a location, with its indigenous population and history, accommodates recent arrivals and new inhabitants. The performance strives to present a new kind of storytelling, employing visual images, movement, and musical scoring to uniquely interpret the diversified life of the specific site, The Settlement Quarry, in which it is performed. Creating intimate access for audience members to the quarry’s animating forces, Chase, Kanazawa, and Chase draw together a community of players, allowing observance of moments often unobserved. In a story of seagulls and porcupines, herons and humans, small actions are combined with joyously grand gestures. A dancing excavator operated by Deer Isle’s Rick Weed hauls recycled boat plastic and jungle gym houses to set the stage for play, and steel drums accent the rhythms of natural life. The drama of invasion and cohabitation finds its response in a generous appreciation of the preserve itself. Friends, neighbors, returning dancers, and the audience themselves populate a place we love, a place to which we are all—in ways both challenging and thrilling—inextricably linked: this beautiful Down East coast of Maine.

This theatrical spectacle includes professional dancers in aerial performances; community members in multiple character roles; original steel drum music from a live community band; giant puppets created and choreographed by Mia Kanazawa; and heavy equipment. “Q2: Habitat” is conceived and directed by Kanazawa and Chase, founding artistic director of Pilobolus Dance Theater and of Alison Chase Dance.

From the Primordials–towering, skeletal 15’ puppets swooping and looming above the drama–;to the ancient porcupine (a giant puppet, animated by local puppeteers); the Heron, played by legendary Felix Blaska, and seagulls; to the industry and machinery of generations of fishermen; to conservationists and bird watchers, and the visions of “dream home”owners and their architects, all of us will find our desires for and conflicts over this beautiful place represented in “Q2: Habitat.”

Audience members are strongly encouraged to purchase tickets in advance and to car pool as there is limited parking at the Settlement Quarry. Shuttle service will not be provided from downtown Stonington. Annotated maps will be available upon purchase of advance tickets. Those driving to the Quarry will be directed to parking and may need to walk as much as a half a mile to get to the performance area. Audience members with accessibility needs may be dropped off at the performance entrance, and will be shuttled to the rim of the amphitheater, making the performances fully accessible for all. Audience will be admitted to the performance area no earlier than 4 p.m.

The six performances of “Q2: Habitat” are at 5 p.m. each night, August 3-8. There will be no advance sales for Sunday, August 8, which will be used as a rain date.

General admission tickets for the performance are $20 with fixed income and group sales discounts available; Deer Isle-Stonington school students attend for free. Tickets may be purchased and printed directly at online box office; by calling the Opera House box office at 207-367-2788; or by stopping by the box office on the corner of Main and School Streets in downtown Stonington Mondays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Partial funding for this project has been generously provided by the Maine Arts Commission; the Jim Henson Foundation; the Maine Community Foundation; and by the Holland Family.