Created with grants from Theatre Bay Area, San Francisco, CA and CCSCS, Santa Cruz, CA

Occupied is about the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and the minds of Americans. Leralee Whittle and Paul Sprawl created video, images, music and dance to accompany a comprehensive blog about the demise of Bagdad by Riverbend, a young Iraqi woman. Occupied was performed in 2009 at The 418, Santa Cruz, CA, Steynburg Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA, Stage Door Cabaret, Mt Shasta, CA, Alwun House, Phoenix, AZ, Prescott College, Prescott, AZ, Blue Sage Center for the Arts, Paonia, CO, Mercury Theatre, Denver, CO and Railyard Performance Center, Santa Fe, NM.

“Whittle performs some of the most effective dance I’ve had the privilege to see anywhere…Paul Sprawl has been essential in the creation, and his guitar music, written to join organically with her dance, and with the effecting videos projected on the screen, is amazingly right… (Whittle) is extremely inventive, and has the ability all great choreographers must have to convey through motion the visions that the audience will find most intriguing and evocative.”
Review excerpts- (2009) by Marion C. Stewart (former critic for Kohler Arts Center)