Wreck | 2008
ABOUT THE WORK
Set inside the last watertight compartment of a recently sunken ore boat at the bottom of Lake Superior, Wreck drives headlong into the extremes of physical and psychological endurance. Thirteen performers push toward the movement “event horizon,” where violence and cooperation, obsession and compassion collide in the face of inevitable destruction. What emerges is a theatrical experience that is both urgent and haunting—“rugged, athletic and gutsy but also beautiful and intimate” (Star Tribune)—drawing audiences into a visceral, edge-of-the-abyss world they won’t forget.
Rooted in Artistic Director Carl Flink’s childhood memories of his father’s life on Great Lakes ore boats and shaped by the profound personal losses that marked his early adulthood, Wreck becomes more than a story of a ship going down. It is an embodied elegy—an explosive, communal act of remembering and resilience forged through years of creation, reinvention, and collaboration with composer Mary Ellen Childs and the original onstage music ensemble. Today, Wreck stands as one of Black Label Movement’s definitive works: an unforgettable, heart-pounding dive into what it means to face the inevitable together.