Ares and Aphrodite video, part one
Comments (0) Not amazing quality, but not horrible. Feel free to refer to the script if the audio is unintelligible…
Part two is forthcoming.
-R
Posts tagged: aphrodite
Comments (0) Performance layout (a draft)
By Rebecca, December 6, 2008 11:39 pm
Going through notes, I found this old outline of what I was thinking about for the solo performance while I was working on it. The most recent edit was on 9/30/08.
- Start with the first section of Ares and Aphrodite
- I think that works well going into Children’s Games, though I’m not sure. I also need to write something about bathing suits, and maybe this is a a good place to put it.
- Second section of Ares and Aphrodite
- Talk about fear of change – needs new writing. I think I should talk about separation anxiety and fears I had going into puberty (not that I saw them that way at the time, but looking back in retrospect…)
- Third section of Ares and Aphrodite – needs to be written. A jump taking the story from 10 (following the dream) to 20 (when the main character does something about it)
Ares and Aphrodite script
By Rebecca, December 5, 2008 12:37 am
Thought people might enjoy seeing this…it’s, basically, the final version of the script I used for the solo performance from a couple weeks ago. Video is (hopefully) forthcoming.
GENERAL LIGHTING - CHILDHOOD GAMES
Run on as an airplane, get shot down, tumble down, look up at audience – coming on with that excited, child-energy
When I was young – I must have been 6 or 7 – I remember playing ‘make believe’ with a friend, running around in the park behind my house.
Have another moment of make-believe
I remember that, at some point in the make believe, I was captured by the bad guys -
Being captured
- and transformed into a girl. My friend had to rescue me! But ‘rescuing’ me didn’t mean ‘transforming me back into a boy,’ just ‘freeing me from the bad guys.’ I didn’t really want to be transformed back into a boy. And I remember it being important (for some pre-pubescent, gender-affirming reason) for me to be naked on the bed in my room, my penis tucked between my legs in a hairless V.
Reworking Ares and Aphrodite
By Rebecca, September 28, 2008 6:07 pm
Note: The first group showing for the mentorship project was a really great learning experience ance, following feedback and discussion of what I showed, I’ve decided to try and rework Ares and Aphrodite to make it A) better suited for the stage and B) more understandable for the audience. This piece will be taking components from each of the three Ares and Aphrodite pieces I’ve written so far, as well as incorporating new material and attempting to do a better job explaining the mythos I’m creating. I’ve also put ‘chapter’ markings for where I’m thinking of splitting the piece for the final performance (where it will be woven in with personal narrative).
CHAPTER ONE
Long ago, in the time when gods and goddesses were known to come down from Olympus and walk among mortals, a husband a wife lived near a great sea. They were not so poor as to want for many things, and yet not so well-off as to forget that all mortals can be brought low by divine power. They lived in happiness with their love for each other, and yet they felt their lives were incomplete for they were childless. So they prayed to Demeter, goddess of fertility, and at last the wife felt life stirring within her.
It is said that when a child is conceived it is sexless until touched by Ares, god of war, or Aphrodite, goddess of love; that the formation of any mortal body is incomplete until it is infused with the strength of Ares or the grace of Aphrodite. And yet, what happens when Ares and Aphrodite both claim a mortal child?
Mentorship photo shoot
By Rebecca, September 22, 2008 10:33 am
Some pics from a recent photo shoot I did of the piece I’m working on for the mentorship. (Thanks EU for help taking pictures!) (No, not the European Union…)
Mentorship video! (A rough draft…)
By Rebecca, September 14, 2008 1:50 am
Below is a test shoot of the first chunk of Ares and Aphrodite followed by Children’s Games. I don’t like caveats or disclaimers before artistic showings, so I won’t give any, but I will follow up below the break with some things I think were successful and those that need to be improved upon.
Continue reading 'Mentorship video! (A rough draft…)'»
gender, memory, theatre, trans
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aphrodite, ares, mentorship, rough draft, theatre, video
Ares and Aphrodite Myth – After the Dream
By Rebecca, September 8, 2008 8:53 pm
Apogonos tried to put the dream out of his mind, but it haunted him and stalked him, day in and day out. He thought about it constantly. What would his life be like had be been born a girl? He thought about long hair and short, pierced ears and bare, he thought about bodies and curves and hair and muscle and fat, and he thought about himself, and who he wanted to be.
For the next ten years, those questions were never far from his mind. At the same time, he felt plagued by inaction – miserable as a prisoner in a body he did not want, and yet terrified of what giving voice to that desire might do. He told friends, who accepted his statements at face value but could offer no real advice or guidance. He told his parents, who smiled and nodded and, with great love, had no idea what to do about it or how to handle what their son was saying. He told the gods, who looked down in silence.
At last, at twenty, when he was supposed to be a man (and yet we know how often, at twenty, we are still but children) he set off on a journey to find his own path. The dream, now ten years past, continued to haunt his mind and he was unable to find a moment of peace or relief from its haunting message. Apogonos knew from years of pain that there was no help to be found in the town of his birth so with a pack and a farwell, he walked away from all he knew.
The road that ran parallel to the large inland lake near his home was well-traveled and safe. Periodically, he would catch a hint of blue from between the tree branches and see the sun shine off the surface of thr water. He walked for many days, occasionally passing fellow travelors or carts of trade goods, sleeping in a tent or – more often – under the stars.The time alone was time to think, but only solidified that which he already knew: He would find a way to recitfy Ares’ festering wound and deliver himself from manhood, or he would deliver himself to Hades and let the Lord of the Underworld deal with him as he would.
“You’re going to kill yourself? How melodramatic.”
In the years since his dream, and particularly in the years since puberty, Apogonos had developed an inner voice who conversed with him in the tone of a woman about his age. He thought of her – when he thought of her at all; her existance embarassed him to no end – as who he should have been. Who he would be, or die trying.
“Be quiet. I’m not going to kill myself. But I can’t live like this. You know that.” And she did, for she was him.
“Then do something about it. Let me be you instead of just yelling at you. Stop dancing around what you want and reach out to grab it!”
“I don’t know how!” And, as he had many times before, Apogonos wept himself to sleep.
Rule of Three
By Rebecca, August 20, 2008 5:18 pm
Storytellers are are often bound by the ‘rule of three.’ That is, the ear enjoys hearing groups of three, whether it’s in common sayings (see: “ready, set, go!”), story events repeated three times (see: the three little pigs), or lists of things (see: this sentence). The Ares and Aphrodite Myth I’m writing elsewhere on this site is openly using the mythology of the story as a metaphor for my own situation, and I’m not trying to pretend otherwise. But I also do want it to be a good story, and I just realized that I have some potentially convenient ‘threes’ in my life that might help.
The two big threes I’m looking at right now are my tongue-in-cheeck ‘three puberties’ (in Puberty = Chicken Pox) and, more helpful for the story I’m creating, three therapists (I went through two lousy therapists before my current – awesome and amazing – therapist.) I don’t think I can help myself from using that as a repeated story event: the main character goes to one person (inevitably going to be a witch or sooth-sayer or whatnot) who can’t help, a second who can’t help, and a third who is finally able to help.
Hmm…. I know I also need to write more personal narrative….
-R
Ares and Aphrodite Myth
By Rebecca, August 14, 2008 8:21 pm
And yet, Apogonos had always known some part of him was not right, was off somehow. In his heart of hearts he was sure he did not want to grow from boyhood to manhood, and would much rather cast off maleness entirely and claim a woman’s body. But he would have violently denied any such accusation, said they were wrong, he was a boy and would be a man.
For Apogonos had been struck at birth by the poisoned shaft of Ares, and drawn into a whirlpool of male and female.
The poison had seeped into his blood, lay mostly dormant for ten years, but was slowly coming to a boil.
The poison had always whispered in Apogonos’ ear, telling him that something was amis, and on his tenth birthday Apogonos dreamed:
Workshop writings – an intermediate stage
By Rebecca, July 31, 2008 3:28 am
This is the text from a writing excersize in the workshop. I was very much continuing the work I’d done here, but enjoying letting the power of storytelling enter a little more. The final text I performed, which I’ll post one of these days, was somewhere in between in terms of flowery storytelling language and stark physical imagery.
I was struck at birth by the shaft of Ares. It’s true. The gods on high looked down and across time and saw me, barely formed. Perhaps one smiled or one frowned, perhaps they were spiteful or bitter or joyful or pleased; I don’t know. But I know Ares (or, perhaps, the warriors of Ares, his phalanx of gleaming, armored troops, which – in the end – is close enough to a mortal such as myself) drew his bow, notched a piece of wood, straight and true, and let fly his arrow.
It was a poison arrow.
Continue reading 'Workshop writings – an intermediate stage'»
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