Will They Play Golf on Mars?

 In 2016, Elon Musk gave a speech in Guadalajara, Mexico outlining his plan to build rockets that would transport colonizers to Mars. His plan, he argued, would make humans a “multi-planetary species” and save humankind from a pending, inevitable doomsday event. One year later, Will They Play Golf on Mars? was created. A multi-year research project that yielded three different iterations and four performances in New York, Seattle, and San Francisco between 2017 and 2019, Will They Play Golf on Mars? used Elon Musk's Mars presentation to interrogate the tropes of space exploration, Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism, and colonization. What happens to our ability to dream collectively as a society when so much wealth has been consolidated in the hands of so few?

December, 2017
Presented through the Open Studio Program at On the Boards in Seattle, Washington. Performed by Janine Renee Cunningham, Directed by Andrew Goldberg

October, 2018
Prelude Festival at the Segal Center in New York City. Performed by Janine Renee Cunningham, Directed by Andrew Goldberg

June, 2019
World Ecology Resource Network Conference in San Francisco. Performed by Janine Renee Cunningham, Directed by Andrew Goldberg

December, 2019
Dixon Place in New York City. Performed by Janine Renee Cunningham, Amy Ingram, Liz Charky, Jonathan Silver, and Catherine Correa. Directed by Dara Malina. Design by Jon DeGaetano