ALPHA MARE
world premiere coming in spring 2027
ALPHA MARE is a new choreographic work from
littlehouse that imagines a world
without animals.
Setting animal life and death under a magnifying
glass, this full-length contemporary dance work
flips through a collage of altars to the
unmourned. Images of dirt and rot, flies and
vultures, bruises and heartache expand, shrivel,
nuzzle, grunt, and burst.
The world of ALPHA MARE considers the tension between cyclical and irreversible time: while life unfolds in seasons and generations, extinction is final. Once time runs out, there is no returning. The performers explore a landscape of forgotten antlers, searching for traces of what once was.
Taking the global crises of mass extinction, industrialized animal agriculture, and the widespread invisibility of animal suffering as its point of departure, ALPHA MARE asks what it means to remain present to a world that is vanishing before us. The work approaches animal death not as metaphor but as reality, offering visibility to lives that too often pass without acknowledgment.
Credits
Concept & Direction: Heather Stewart
Composer: Courtney Swain
Dancer Collaborators: Taylor Butterfield, Isabel Hunter, Mia Muntu, Maddy Joss
Lighting and Technical Designer: Harrison Pearse Pollack
Presenting Partners: Mechanics’ Hall & Multicultural Center
Research & development for ALPHA MARE has been supported Villekula Farm, a farm and artist residency in rural Nebraska and Casco Bay Movers.
World Premiere: May 14 - 15 at Mechanics’ Hall
Tour Dates: May 22 at The Multicultural Center (Cambridge, ME)
