Letters to Maud (from Shyamala and Babli)- Babli's edits

SHYAMALA'S LETTER

May 8, 1915/2019

Dear Maud,

You look stunning! I wish I could pull off an outfit like that! Wherever did you get it from? Part harlot, part orientalist imagination…you are a master of fulfilling people’s fantasies. And what a femme fatale. I mean I’m a femme and I feel kind of fatal when I think of you carrying the severed head of John the Baptist on a platter…did you really kiss it?  Well, I suppose I would kiss it too if it were the head of patriarchy that I could sever and kiss goodbye.

I keep thinking of all these men swooning after you and your spectacular performance of Salome - I suppose they prefer beheading to castration but I really don’t understand the hype around Salome. The craze around you on the other hand is another story, … though I’ve heard that you were not into men, but lavish your attentions on your female secretary? 

So why do you do it then – cater to their fantasies? Are you in it for the money, for the fame? Did you feel the raw seductive power of your bare skin? The power to behead men? Or do you feel liberated wearing nothing but pearls? I always thought pearls were for the conservative type, but no, you brought them back around, like the liberal woman that you are.  Always breaking stereotypes aren’t you? Breaking them and making them!  

Well, I know you’re busy suing against the “Cult of the Clitoris” defamation. But, I do hope you write back. Maybe we could get to know each other better. I’ve heard you’ve toured India and have an interest in Indian dance. I could help with that.  

See you in the theater,

Shyamala

-->
BABLI'S LETTER

Darling Maudie,

So, how was the garden party? I am sure you were the perfect hostess, just the quality Verna adores in you- and I am sure you looked stunning.

I wonder how it felt for you to host The Ladies Committee (...) for (the) Relief of Jewish Children from Germany.  I mean you lived in Germany – and you know German, right? Of course you were there much earlier, even before the Weimar Republic, when Berlin was just awakening into its anarchist and subversive glory of the early 20th century. When the horrible times to come could not be foreseen yet. Do you remember the amazing avant-garde movements and artists and subversive political cabarets? I wonder- did you ever meet Anita Berber?

And wasn’t it in Berlin that you became a ‘barefoot dancer’, and where you saw the production of Wilde’s Salomé by Max Reinhardt which inspired your Visions of Salomé? Berlin is all over your career! I guess MP Billing did his homework before he linked your anarchist sexuality to Germany.

I mean accusing you of being a German-sympathizer, a sadist AND a lesbian all in one breath?

True, you really were a femme fatale.  Bold. And lesbian. And it looks like you were really obsessed with pearls. To be frank – I kind of hate pearls. Well most pearls. Your style really isn’t my cup of tea.

But I digress. Where were we? Oh yes, the trial.

Tell me, what were you thinking denying your own identity and your lover by suing Billing for defamation? And what was that about Lord Douglas testifying against you for Billing’s case? I mean, wasn’t he Wilde’s lover?  So much for queer solidarity – between the ways you treated Verna and Douglas treated you – so disappointing. One could never take queer solidarity for granted I guess.

Well, goes to show that not every queer icon is to be admired automatically. So, why do I even write to you, a queer ancestor I cannot respect?

Sandra

SOURCES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2yHoEY0VdQ

https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/women/willing-to-be-thrilling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Alfred_Douglas#Libel_actions

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/oscar-wilde-maud-allan-cult-of-the-clitoris-black-book-first-world-war-a8369811.html

http://www.sxpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/article-douglas-sanders.pdf

Babli's Letter to Maud

Darling Maudie,

So, how was the garden party? I am sure you were the perfect hostess, just the quality Verna adores in you- and I am sure you looked stunning, even though your gown did not turn out to be from Molyneux.

I wonder how it felt for you to host The Ladies Committee of the Jewish Organization for Relief of Jewish Children from Germany.  I mean you lived in Germany – and you know German, right? Of course the time you spent there was a completely different – two regimes earlier, during the time of the German Empire, when Berlin was just awakening into it’s anarchist and subversive glory of the early 20th century. When the horrible times to come could not be foreseen yet.

Do you remember the amazing avant-garde movements and artists and subversive political cabarets? I wonder- did you ever meet Anita Berber?

And wasn’t it in Berlin that you became a ‘barefoot dancer’, and where you saw the production of Wilde’s Salome by Max Reinhardt which inspired your Visions of Salome?

I mean Germany and Berlin is all over your career. I guess MP Billing did do his homework before he linked your anarchist sexuality to the sexually anarchist parts of (anti-British) Germany. I mean accusing you of being German-sympathizer, sadist AND lesbian all in one breath?

True, you really were a femme fatale.  Bold. And lesbian. And it looks like you are really obsessed with pearls. To be frank – I kind of hate pearls. Well most pearls. Your style really isn’t my cup of tea. I mean when you think of femme fatale – just look at Helen! Yes, yes, she is after your time, but isn’t she fabulous? I bet you would have LOVED Bollywood. More to exotify! (But not Helen, she is too complicated)

But I digress. Where were we? Oh yes, the trial.

Tell me, what were you thinking denying your own identity and your lover’s existence and love by suing Billing for defamation? And what was that about Lord Douglas testifying against you for Billing’s case? I mean, wasn’t he Wilde’s lover?  So much for queer solidarity – between the ways you treated Verna and Douglas treated you – so disappointing. One could never take queer solidarity for granted I guess.

Well, goes to show that not every queer icon is to be admired automatically. So, why do I even write to you, a queer ancestor I cannot respect?

Sandra

SOURCES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2yHoEY0VdQ

https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/women/willing-to-be-thrilling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Alfred_Douglas#Libel_actions

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/oscar-wilde-maud-allan-cult-of-the-clitoris-black-book-first-world-war-a8369811.html

http://www.sxpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/article-douglas-sanders.pdf

-->

Performing Maud, Performing the Spectator (Zoom Meeting)

We had a fun Zoom meeting where we did some very raw improvisations using the reviews of Maud Allan's performance, rotating the roles of dancer/reader/spectator.  After each improvisation, the spectator did a movement playback of the dancer's improvisation.

Password for all: Maud
Cyn improv

Shy playback

Shy improv

Babli playback
Babli improv
Cyn playback



We also did three improvisations to the same texts in which we performed as a spectator, rather than as Maud Allan herself.  For mine, I ended up switching between the spectator and Maud a bit.

Cyn as spectator
Babli as spectator
Shy as spectator

Letters from Verna to Maud

Here are some letters gleaned  from Verna Aldrich, Maud Allan's secretary and long-time lover, in case they might be useful for pulling out Allan's queer(ish) proclivities.  There's also a nugget about her relationship to India at the bottom. They are gleaned from Felix Cherniavsky's 1986 article.

REFERENCE:

Maud Allan, Part V: The Years of Decline, 1915-1956 
Author(s): Felix Cherniavsky
Source: Dance Chronicle, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1986), pp. 177-236

"Darling Maudie
Well, I have had an anxious few days trying to get news of you-and I feel quite exhausted. This evening I got the cable and it is some re-assurance-but I can't imagine you having gallstones-you never have had. I hope I got the truth of it all and that everyone is not lying, for I would much rather have the exact truth-I would worry less then. Anyway, dearest, I am so sorry you have been ill -- and I can tell you I felt far away when you were ill-even cables take an interminable time. Anyway, Maudie dear, I didn't know how much I love you until I heard you were critically ill. Now take of yourself and don't do anything startling, go easy.

...
Nella [an unidentified friend] was out here to supper last Sunday and we discussed you and she said to tell you that she says on no condition are you to leave Hollywood. You must stay there-conditions are more favorable to you there than here according to her stars, and then quite apart from that, remembering Marie Dressler's experience, you have only laid the pipe now or rather threaded the needle and if you come off now it will all go for nothing.  You can't expect the chance you want to be waiting for you when you arrived -but now people know you and think of you when the chance comes for you. If they have to send over to London that is a different matter-ten days' delay at least-and so your best bet is to stay put." (207-8)

"Darling [Verna wrote on March 29, 1937], I know how hard it all is but you must be brave and carry on like my little soldier-I have the same to do at this end but know you have all you can carry so do not burden all the little things to you because after all I am so we are just going over the top that they don't worry me as much as they did, and I know you are too unhappy to be burdened more. But I want you to unburden to me as much as you want. Darling you must grit your teeth and be happy even if it is only to take walk with the little wee doggie. I am so sure-I can't tell you how sure I am-that the end of next year will see our troubles far behind us. That does not mean I think we must wait another year-I think they are dawning now!
...
Really and truly darling, I will not have much patience if you don't make the effort-write your opinions about anything that occurs to you.

You have had a wonderful life-and more than all else you are a wonderful person yourself and you must not let a feeling of pity and lethargy overwhelm the real, fine brain that is down under all this trouble-I don't mean your fame and all that greatness-but through everything in your life, and every bit of you I have known has shown a great, marvellously lovely character-and I want that to come out in your life story, as it is just bound to, naturally. Darling, you don't think I would have loved you all these trying, worrying years if you had just been a vain shallow creature-there is something in you that is great and lovely-that overcomes! That is not mastered by circum- stances but masters circumstances. Now, my Maudie must overcome the circumstances of the day! The little girl in you must not be afraid to cry-she must be great! You have a definite work to do, now do it!

...

The Ladies Committee of the Jewish Organization for Relief o Jewish Children from Germany are wanting the garden for a g party and have written to your secretary asking it from you- it is a very important list of people connected with it, I have in your name. It will be held the end of June-they are much pleased and will write to thank you. Lady Melchett and Lady Sassoon and goodness knows who else are on the working end -Mrs. Laski, a very rich woman whom you probably know was the other day-she is quite sweet .

...
You will be then and will have a new frock and will be the dear little hostess I love, with all the troubles behind. If we have enough money you shall have a gown from Molyneux. Don't laugh-things are going to come! 'Poor dear,' you are thinking, 'her troubles have gone to her head.' No, dearest, they haven't!" (209-10)

"Dearest Maudie, Well, I don't seem to get any letters from you, pretty soon, if you don't keep in close touch with me, you will fade away in my thoughts to just that of a distant friend-so it's up to you to keep the memory green." (210)

'"Really," she wrote from California on December 7, 1938, "I am beg to think that place hypnotizes us both-it is so lovely out here and life is so much less expensive.' (219)

"I told you a long time ago that you must never, under any circumstances, appeal to him for help" Verna wrote in a letter dated January 2, 1939), Maud had cabled one of Verna's wealthy relatives for help, referring in that cable to "Verna's personal overdraft." That debt, she reminded Maud, had incurred solely to meet "immediate property obligations to be met to save the place for you at all. I gave your interests many years of my life and I think it is a poor return that you do this"" (220-1)

"I've had a hard time this winter, much harder than anyone has realized" (221)

"I wish," she wrote on March 1, 1939, "should you leave West Wing, you would have someone level the little graves where the doggies are buried. If they are level no one will disturb them, but if they are plainly graves, they might dig them up."

"I don't want to sound cross with you, Maudie, when I know what a devilish time you are having-but you must not say that I used your Power of Attorney unwisely or unfairly- not right. I only used it for the telephone, the gas, the electronic contracts which were in your name.

...

It seems so good to be out of all the nightmare of worry-it seems so endless-I don't see why you ever went back to it. It hypnotized while I was there-I thought the house all important, but now that I am away from it I realize that if we had both washed our hands of it years ago, we would be much better off today. I can't understand how, when you were away from it for a few months, you ever wanted to go back to it. I do hope you can sell it for something this Spring-no matter for how little." (221)

"'I just can't do anything right now, ' she wrote on March 23, 'and it's useless to bombard me. I'm very sorry, but there it is. I can't do what I can't do, can I?'" (221)

" I remember now doing it when I thought I was packing up everything for good and that we were both returning to California. I packed your little brown leather trinket case in my trunk. I did not want to send it to storage but thought I would give it to you when I met you out here. I have sealed it with sealing wax and will deposit it with a bank or anyone you would like me to leave it with. It costs four dollars a year to leave it in the bank, but I would pre- fer to do that than keep it with me. I will send it if I get a good opportunity-but if I send it through the post you will probably have to pay duty so that's no good. They would probably charge you as much for the things as they are worth. I could have kicked myself when I found it. It was in my large trunk, not my small one with my immediate needs in it." (222)

Also, there's this nugget about Allan's relationship to India and Indian dance:
"Interviewed by the San Francisco Call and Post on March 3, 1915, Maud spoke of her plan to tour the United States "in new dances, gleaned from natives of India, and the native dances of the Orient.... I have gleaned something entirely new-steps which have never before been seen here and steps that will startle the dancing world .... The dances of India are the most expres- sive in the world-they reveal the height of expression; they reach the roots of emotion, and express this selfsame emotion in their movements-supple and divine. The native of India is the true exponent of free dancing. It is he or she who can, with the twitching of a muscle, express more than all the books of the land. Fear, love, rage, hate-everything they express in but one movement. The eyes widened, the limbs cowering, the body cringing-all in a flash they change to an expression of fear. They are marvelous. I have been able to gain a few steps from the natives, and I have improved on some of them. They will be worth seeing."(231)

 

Wonderful flesh zoom ideas for 3/11/19

Adaptation of reader, performer, viewer score:
take turns
1 person being reader with different music choices
1 person being abhinaya performer/viewer specifically to the viewer
1 person viewer/Maud

After go, viewer/Maud do a playback of sound and movement and riff on all?

Sound score movement development: 
play each of the reviews sound scores and two people dance to it ( interpret it, undermine it or take it over the top...)
one watches and scribes and/or replays.

Projection Development:
Cyn and Babli direct Shy to try different things with projection of Maud and cloth

Sounding the Spectator, Part II

For my study, I recorded more reviews of Maud Allan's "Vision of Salome" to different Orientalist music.  I put out a call on social media for music suggestions (with so many responses!) -- some of these are drawn from people's recommendations.

Richard Strauss' "Dance of the Seven Veils" (possibly the original music that Maud Allan danced to):

"Miserlou" (suggested by Meiver De La Cruz)

Duke Ellington's "Caravan" (suggested by Beto Gonzalez)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QnmwcVxsIBNjTUgc85cFFCd0AE5PExK7/view?usp=sharing

One quick sound note -- I'd like to re-record the Strauss recording at a different level this so my voice doesn't clip, but I didn't have time. 

I'm pretty open to any kind of feedback, but here are some questions in case you find that useful.
Questions:
(1) How do the text and music relate in each example? 
(2) Any feedback on how I read the reviews? 
(3) What do you make of the range of music?  What kind of sequence would you put these in (including the recording with Lakme I did last time)?
(4) What possible staging/performance/embodied possibilities do you see for this audio?  How would you connect the recordings to the other material we've developed thus far?

Here are all the music suggestions people gave.  Since I was recording text over the music, I generally found that songs with lyrics were hard to work with -- this eliminated most of the pop songs and musicals.

Music Suggestions:
Meiver De La Cruz: "The most re-recorded and abused oritalist piece is “Miserlou” (of Pulp Fiction fame). I have used it in performance and it’s very recognizable and effective.
It’s originally a Greek song about an Egyptian girl whom is “sweet.”"
Yiman Wang: music from Anna May Wong's films
Rebeca Hernandez: Shakira, "Ojos Así"
Joan Titus: Verdi's Aida, Borodin’s In The Steppes of Central Asia, Debussy’s Estampes, “Pagodes” (first mvt), Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Turandot, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Rodgers and Hammerstein's “Bali Hai” from South Pacific
Beto González: Duke Ellington's "Caravan"  
Ozgur Basak Alkan: Istanbul Constantinople
Sabrina Hamilton: SAIGON (old radio drama)
Heather Rastovac: "I Wanna See You Bellydance" 
Sarah Orem: Selena Gomez, "Come and Get It"
Arushi Singh: Iggy Azalea, "Bounce"
Amy Smith: Jaya Lakshmi and Ananda Yogiji
Gunter Acer: Vico Torriani - Cafe Oriental 1961
Sander Roscoe Wolff: Talking Heads, "Listening Wind"; The Mikado
Loren Nerell: The Vapors, "Turning Japanese"
Ilaan Mazzini: "Little Brown Gal"
Olivia Samad: Madonna, "Shanti Ashtangi"
Alyssa Stover: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I”
Claire Pamment: Char-Lee Chann, "CHU CHIN CHOW"

 

Maud Stamp

Folks were interested in part of a previous exploration, where I had Maud on my legs and my torso was cut off in the image.  So here's two super quick improvisations with Maud on my legs but showing my whole body.  Just to see if it also works with a larger frame (and thus live).

Password:  Maud

Footwork exploration 1 from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


Password: Maud

Footwork exploration 2 from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.



Questions: 
1.  Is seeing my face distracting?  (I didn't have a strong/clear sense of emotion)

2.  Does this hold any interesting moments or ideas to develop for you?

3.  Any other thoughts?

Triple Projection explorations

So this set up of the cloth in two layered panels is actually part of the set for a section of my new show for youth "The Summ of All Things."  I just couldn't resist trying out the projections on it.  I like the feeling of setting up an environment like the salon feel, and also thought of the possibility of having each of us moving in a different area:  in front, between, or behind.  Or of us manually creating the shape of it, or moving the shape of it, so two people are holding it while one is interacting with the projection and it can shift. 

If you are at all interested in this, I can set it up for our zoom call and you all can maybe suggest things for me to try out.  If we want to use some variation of this set up, we can decide if we want to use this cloth or invest in a new color, or perhaps two different colors to make the layers stand out more.  If we want a new one, I can try to get one before our residency.

Below are three explorations with the cloth:  1. just projection, 2. improvising behind the back most panel,  and 3. improvising in the middle between the front and back panels.  I thought I had some exploration in front of the first panel but I can't find it.  Probably they would look more interesting if I wear a lighter color. 


1.  Triple projection
password: Maud

Sins of such wonderful flesh triple projection from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

2. Improvising in back
password: Maud

Triple projection improvisation, back layer from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

3.  Improvising in middle 
password: Maud


Triple projection, middle layer from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


Questions:
1.  Any interest in this kind of set up?
2.  Any thoughts on what to do with it? 

Ghostly Desires

I spent some time fleshing out some of the parts from the last improvisation where I was dancing with Maud's projection.  I incorporated some vocabulary from Babli's original abhinya to the Maud text. And I became interested to see the study that Babli, Cyn and Meena created inter-spliced with this improvisation.  I also incorporated Cynthia's last audio recording exploration in part of this too.  I did this improvisation in silence so to be able to take time with the movement this time, so if the sounds don't work for you, you could try muting them.  Also, even though her image is still here, I would like to have it VERY slowly morph from one image to another. 

password: Maud

Ghostly Desires from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

Questions:
1.  What meaning/s do you get from this?
2.  Are the recalling of the text and sounds in different ways working for you?
3.  What are the most compelling moments for you?
4.  How can you imagine all three of our live bodies being incorporated into this and where in the space might we each be?  I wrote a scenario below that I brainstormed in relation to this.
5.  I didn't use the footwork in this version, do you imagine it could still be incorporated here somehow?
6.  Any other thoughts?

Shy's brainstorm to question #4: 
Section 1:  Babli is sitting in the audience doing Abhinaya toward the stage
Cyn is filming live feed which is projected somewhere on the stage
text is spoken by Cyn or by Shy offstage?
Section 2:  Maud Allan's image comes up, taking over the live feed or possibly on another area of the stage.  Shy enters and approaches Maud Allan to the Ruth St. Denis music.  Babli and Cyn both do abhinaya toward Maud Allan and/or Shy.
Section 3:  Shy is caressing Maud Allan's image, Cyn and Babli do abhinaya toward Maud Allan/Shy while speaking the text in canon.  
Section 4: Shy becomes Maud Allan, Cynthia becomes parody of exotifying announcer and narrates while Shy moves with Maud Allan on body.  Babli does abhinaya toward Shy or Cyn.
Section  5:  Babli catches Maud Allan on her hand, Shy says text and Cyn does abhinaya toward Maud and/or Babli.
Section 6: Babli is on the stage doing abhinaya toward the audience.
Shy is filming live feed which is projected somewhere on the stage.
text is spoken by Cyn.

This idea starts to incorporate the idea of us switching roles like I wrote in one score idea from a while back and could be pushed even more in that direction if that is interesting.

What do I desire, adding audio and visuals

 I was inspired to make a sound recording for the "What do I desire" poem I wrote about Salome and Draupadi.  I could imagine this perhaps as a duet, two of us connected by a sheer sari that wraps and unwraps and intertwines us.  Note that I was fooling around with a shruti box generator and couldn't record it too well, it doesn't sound like it sounded coming directly from the generator, and the transitions are a bit rougher, but I like the idea of it!

password: desire



And here I've overlaid one of the video projection improvisations that I was playing with and find that it could be related to the poem, though for a group piece, I like the duet idea better.

password: wonderful


Questions:
1.  Are you more interested in the projection with live body here or in the reviews study "Maud and Me"?
2.  Other ideas for enhancing the audio of this poem?
3. Is this piece related to the Maud Allan work we've been doing or is it too much of a tangent?
4. Any other thoughts?

Sounding the Spectator

For my study, I did a sound recording of the text of one of the reviews of Maud Allan's performance of The Vision of Salome from The Labour Leader.   

Here is one take of just my voice:

Here is another take, where my voice is accompanied by the music from another Oriental dancer's work, Ruth St. Denis' "Delirium of Senses," the culmination of her choreography, Radha. 


It would have been interesting to use the actual music from A Vision of Salome, but I haven't been able to nail down what that was yet.  Some say that she danced to original music by Belgian composer Marcel Remy; others claim that it was an arrangement by Remy of Strauss' "Dance of the Seven Veils."   See, for instance, Clair Rowden's "Whose/Who's Salome?: Natalia Trouhanowa, A Dancing Diva" (Ashgate Publishing, 2013, 75).

Here are a couple links for prop/costume ideas:
pearls: https://www.amazon.com/Zivyes-Fashion-Pearls-Necklace-Accessories/dp/B06ZYZFXZS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1548740578&sr=8-2&keywords=pearls+costume+jewelry
severed head: https://www.amazon.com/Forum-Novelties-Severed-Halloween-Haunted/dp/B01LOUWV74/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1548740803&sr=8-8&keywords=severed+head

QUESTIONS:
(1) What is your emotional or visceral response to my reading?  Is it too over the top?  What kind of person do you imagine me to be (personality, gender, class, etc.)?
(2) How might you imagine this material staged / embodied / performed?  How would the audience be involved in that?
(3) Which version do you prefer, and why?
(4) Other thoughts?

Creative Exploration: Reviewing and Costuming Wonderful Flesh

Please share your creative exploration below by Feb 11:

Part 1: Create something out of the reviews/reactions of Maud Allan at the link below

Reviews: http://postnatyam.blogspot.com/2018/09/reviews-of-maud-allans-performances.html

    Examples: Editing them into a new poem

    Put self in the position of the objectifier and read them in the most lascivious way possible

Video hands writing the reviews over a photo of Maud Allan in Salome costume, crossing out and editing

Part 2: Post in the comments below a link of something we can buy for costumes or props:  for example, John the Baptists' Head,  Maud Allan, Salome inspired costumes, pearls, etc.

Note: The idea for this exploration was created collectively in our group meeting.

What do I desire? A little free write

you call me the pious one, 
you see me as the temptress

you are entranced my beauty, 
you applaud my agile limbs

you gamble with my life, 
you offer me your kingdom

you snatch my endless sari, 
you lust for flesh beneath my veils

you strip me of my dignity, 
you blame me for your trespasses

I am Draupadi, 
I am Salome

What do I desire?

I became curious about the intersections of these two figures, Draupadi and Salome.  They seem parallel and opposites.  This is a beginning exploration, keeping in mind my interest in who has agency, who is the subject and who is the object etc.

a pearl poem

For my exploration, I decided to do some writing on pearls. Below is a poem I wrote, followed by a less structured free association that I'm sharing in case some of the images are inspiring.

salt and lustre

you started as an irritant

not a grain of sand

but an early trauma

bruising the fleshy lips of your inner mantle

or a parasite

that would sicken and rot your soft innards

I enclose you

in calcium carbonate and nacre

a defense against harm

an immune system response

the princess and the pea

humans pry us open with sharp knives

throw us away on great piles

flesh rotting in heat and sun

protective shells forced open

searching for that rare pearl

evidence of trauma made luminous

they pluck out our sheen

place us in crowns and scepters

sort our hurts by size and color and lustre

women string us around their necks

with their matching sweater sets

men slurp out our innards

tasting the sea

Maud Allan adorned herself

in flesh and pearl

white flesh and white pearl

asking to be opened up

tasted

the salt and lustre of hurt

(free association on pearls)
the pearly gates nacre iridescent lustre layers calcium carbonate what a pearl pearl milk tea tits n ass boba anal beads sexy excretions feminine stolen from mollusk inserting a plastic bead into your fleshy mantle loving admiring exotifying your hurts your defense mechanisms your way of healing

Real Life or Fake News? Glimpses into Maud Allan's Tabloid-like Life

For this round, I decided to do some research on Maud Allan’s life.  I was most interested in learning more about the queer aspects of her life, both personally and in the context of the infamous “Cult of the Clitoris” case.  My partial trip down this research rabbit hole was, well, pretty trippy.

Reading about Maud Allan’s life was like reading the tabloids, but from the early 1900s.  Super sensationalistic.  Most of what I’m going to summarize below is based on Philip Hoare’s book, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century, as well as Lucy Bland’s book chapter, “Trial by Sexology: Maud Allan, Salome and the ‘Cult of the Clitoris’” case in the book, Sexology in Culture.  I apologize that I’m not as thorough with citations as I’d like to be – please don’t quote anything in this blog post.

Maud Allan was born Beulah Maude Durrant.  Many folks believe that part of the reason that she changed her last name was because her brother Theo was involved in a high profile murder case.  He was convicted of killing two white women, Minnie Williams (23 yrs) and Blanche Lamont (21 yrs) who were discovered naked in the Baptist church that the Durrant family attended on April 13, 1895.  One was hacked to death, and the other was laid out as if for a medical exam (Theo had attended medical school, but later had an illness that the press termed “brain fever”  (Hoare 66).  Theo was sentenced to death by hanging, and according to the press, his mother, Isabella, kissed her son’s lips in public right after his death (Hoare 69).  There were rumors of mother-son incest that circulated.

A common interpretation is that this traumatic event served as an inspiration for Allan’s later work, The Vision of Salome, whereby Salome kisses the lips of John the Baptist after he has been beheaded – this aligns with Oscar Wilde’s interpretation of Salome as in love with John the Baptist in his play, Salome, based on the biblical story.  According to Hoare, Isabella, wrote her daughter Maud: “You have an opportunity that you must not overlook, for in it lies your whole future success.  Your sorrow with your personality ought to give your playing a charm that cannot be taught.  Now doen’t lose the opportunity to allow the public to judge what you can do” (69).  Hoare interprets these words as Isabella advising her daughter to take advantage of family trauma in order to inspire her performance career (69).

Both the changing of Maud Durrant’s last name to Allan and her moving to Europe to establish her career seem related to an attempt to escape the sensational nature of her brother’s murder.  My impression is that Allan was quite conscious of shaping her own public image and willing to reshape the truth (i.e., lie) to suit her needs.  For example, in her autobiography, My Life and Dancing, she says that her parents were educated doctors, which was not the case.

She originally moved to Berlin to train as a concert pianist (some reviewers compared her to Isadora Duncan, but with greater musicality) and eventually ended up in England.  Her early prolific performances of The Vision of Salome later led to being invited to perform the title role of Wilde’s play, Salome, in 1918.  This would lead to the controversial “Cult of the Clitoris” trial that contributed to the downfall of her career.

To back up for a moment and provide some context, England was in the depths of WWI at the time, and as a result, there was strong anti-German sentiment in the air.  Politicians suspected of being pro-German, such as Allan’s friends and patrons, the Asquiths (the former prime minister and his wife), were vilified by other politicians.  Moreover, foreignness – and specifically Germanness – were associated with homosexuality and elite decadence, in part due to the early work of German sexologists as well as the cabaret scene.  Allan’s sensual Orientalist performances, with her almost nude body covered in little more than pearl beads, fit into this world.  She was also suspected of being a lover of Margot Asquith, who funded her palatial living quarters for twenty years.  It seems well documented that Allan had romantic and sexual relationships with people of varied genders, including her assistant and secretary, Verna Aldrich.

To return to the “Cult of the Clitoris” trial, an MP named Noel Pemberton Billing (a former actor who invented “flying boats” and who ran on a platform of airpower for England, so that its air-force would be as strong as its navy had been historically) published an article, “The 47,000” that was essentially a conspiracy theory in his newspaper, The Imperialist (formerly The Vigilante).  Based on information given by Capt. Harold Spencer, an American who had been discharged from the military due to mental illness, this article claimed that there was a black book with 47,000 names of powerful highly connected British subjects, ranging from politicians to other kinds of elite, who were vulnerable to blackmail by the Germans because they were homosexual.  (It was suggested at the trial that Margot Asquith was in this book.)  A good dose of anti-Semitism infects the anti-German, homophobic stew, since evidently a powerful Jewish cabal working behind the scenes is responsible for much of this.  I haven’t been able to locate the full original article, but here’s a taste: "There exists in the cabinet noire of a certain German prince a book compiled by the Secret Service from the reports of German agents who have infested this country for the past 20 years, agents so vile and spreading debauchery of such a lasciviousness as only German minds could conceive and German bodies execute."  Shortly thereafter, Billing published a short enigmatic paragraph related to the performance of Wilde’s Salome (which was to be performed privately, in part because biblical stories couldn’t be performed publicly): 

"The Cult of the Clitoris

To be a member of Maud Allan's private performances in Oscar Wilde's Salome one has to apply to a Miss Valetta, of 9 Duke Street, Adelphi, W.C. If Scotland Yard were to seize the list of those members I have no doubt they would secure the names of several of the first 47,000."

In response, Maud Allan sued Billing for libel – basically, because his article accused her of being a lesbian, since only lesbians or medical doctors would know what a clitoris was.  The trial was something of a circus, highly attended and covered in the press.  Similarly to Wilde’s libel trial a couple decades earlier, Allan ended up being trial for her queerness, even though she was the one who brought the suit.  Billing basically argued that his article wasn’t libel because it was true.  The earlier trial of her brother was brought as “evidence” that sexual perversion ran in the family.  A key witness, Eileen Villiers-Stuart, who was also Billing’s mistress, perjured herself by claiming to have seen the Black Book firsthand when she had not (there was never any evidence that the Black Book was real); she went on to claim that the names of both Margot Asquith and the judge presiding over the case were in the book.  Billing was found not guilty, and Allan’s career never fully recovered from the negative press.

There’s more interesting stuff to excavate from Allan’s life – notably that she toured India and more on her own same-sex relationships – but that’s what I’ve got to share for now.  One major takeaway I had was the importance of press and publicity: both the rampant fake news of the era and the importance of shaping one's self image in a way that feels resonant with today's social media saturated world.  It strikes me that the way we use the camera and media could be informed by this.

Reviews of Maud Allan's performances

Here is some primary source material, gathered from Philip Hoare's book, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century, which is about Maud Allan's unsuccessful libel suit against MP Noel Pemberton Billing.  His citations are not always complete, so I am not always clear as to a specific newspaper, writer, or date.  If I'm able to track them down, I'll add them in.

Reviews of The Vision of Salome and Oscar Wilde’s Salome

On The Vision of Salome:

“It is as if a wildly jerking sensuality were driving into the slender body, as if it began to blossom and swell forth and glow through her skin…In naked sensuality, her body calculating, she meets the eyes of Herod; the rhythm of her motion accelerates; she knows what she wants, and suddenly in its grisly horror the head of the prophet is handed her from the cistern.  With the natural motions of the wild ash she dances Salome, the demivierge of the perverse instincts, gaze now focused on the pale head in heated ecstasy.  Wildly she revolves her head in jerking madness; her eyes and fingers groping in the cramps of love, they fastasise about unheard-of desires; shame seems to have vanished from her perspiring body; one draws back from the flame of this passion.  Finally abrupt shock overcomes her, freezes her motion, forces her to lay aside the dead head and to be paralysed in the numb pose of nameless self-disgust” (a review of a performance in Prague, cited by Hoare, 74)

“To Maud Allan, swaying like a passion flower in the last steps of the Seven veils, a giant negro brought upon a great salver Jokanaan.  Her eyes half closed, the dancer raised by its dank hair the ghastly prize of Herodias’ daughter.  She leaned towards its lips.  Gently the severed head touched her wrists, and there shot through her a terrible tremor, a shivering of the soul.  Upon her white flesh were the stains, dark crimson clots.  It was blood.  Her body rigid as though carved in marble, the dancer slowly forced her eyes to the face she held aloft.  It was the face of a man not long since dead.  As one from whom life passes very quickly, she crumpled to the floor.  From her hands dropped the head.  It rolled upon her breast and fell beside her, leaving upon her white body a crimson trail.  So was the dancer Maud Allan taught that it is not well to jest with a Noble of Hungary.” (an American paper, cited by Hoare, 74)

“…Miss Allan is such a delicious embodiment of lust that she might win forgiveness with the sins of her wonderful flesh.  With her hot mouth parched for kisses the impeccable saint had refused to give her, she lures an invisible Herod to grant her fiendish prayer.  In the very height of her furious exaltation at winning her request, the change comes.  Before her rises the head she has danced for, and the lips that would not touch her in life she kisses again and again.”  (Alfred Butt, publicity for The Vision of Salome, all copies later destroyed, cited by Hoare 76)

“a reincarnation of the most graceful and rhythmic forms of classic Greece…in The Vision of Salome her writhing body enacts the whole voluptuousness of Eastern femininity” (The Observer, cited by Hoare 77)

“One moment she is the vampire…next she is the lynx.  Always the fascination is animal-like and carnal…Her slender and lissome body writhes in an ecstasy of fear, quivers at the exquisite touch of pain, laughs and sighs, shrinks and vaults, as swayed by passion…She kisses the head and frenzy comes upon her.  She is no longer human.  She is a Maenad sister.  Her hair should be disheveled, her eyes bloodshot.  The amazing crescendo ceases, she falls to the ground a huddles yet wondrously beautiful mass…London has never seen such a graceful and artistic dancing.  It is of a magical beauty.  But the beauty is magic; and the magic is black and insidious.”  (The Labour Leader, cited by Hoare 77)

“She dances like a revivalist preacher and makes as many converts…It would be stupid not to admire the character which has brought about so great a success.  But it would be just as stupid to mistake this American ‘grit’ and ‘bluff’ for beautiful art.”  (Christina Marshall in The Academy, cited by Hoare 78.  The Academy was a magazine of Lord Alfred Douglas, former lover of Oscar Wilde, who later converted to Catholicism, repudiated Wilde and testified against Maud Allan at the libel trial.)

On Oscar Wilde's Salome:

“…a bizarre melodrama of disease…One may admit its atmosphere though it is an atmosphere people who are healthy and desire to remain so would do well to keep out of…One is reminded of some richly jeweled watch that does not go…At the same time, high praise is due…to Miss Maud Allan for her excellent reproduction of the symptoms of Salome” (G.E. Morrison, Morning Post, review of Wilde’s Salome.  The Post supported Billing’s campaign.  Cited by Hoare 97)

“We cannot in the least share in the view that Salome is ‘not an impure work.’  This view was very emphatically expressed by Mr. J.T. Grein in his brief speech at the close of the Independent Theatre private performance on Friday afternoon.  We think that, on the contrary, Salome is a very impure work.  It is impure in its theme – the explicity carnal desire of the daughter of Herodias for Jokanaan the Prophet, otherwise John the Baptist.  It is even more impure in its atmosphere, which is charged with a sickly voluptuousness.  A decadent literary art would scarcely go farther than the gaudy harlotry of words in which Salome is set out.  If there were anything of the tragic spirit behind it, if there were any psychology of character, the manner, while it could not be overlooked, might perhaps be borne with.  But the late Oscar Wilde, though an adroit writer of showy, insincere comedies of modern society, had no perception of tragedy….Salome is little more than a mass of luscious verbiage, with the adjective doing most of the work…rouged and painted like a courtesan’s face…very repellant to a healthy taste…This kind of stuff has no relation to art.  It is animalism, or worse; for animals have their decencies.  As a study in decadent expression, and also from the personal point of view as a human document, Salome is interesting in the library, but it is not fitted for stage representation.” (Bernard Weller, The Stage, review of Wilde’s Salome, cited by Hoare 97-8)

“In her acting as Salome she seemed to feel more than she could express, and her elocution was very faulty.  To the suggestion that Salome is only a child influenced by the first stirrings of puberty, Miss Allan did not lend any support.  Her Salome, on the contrary, suggested a passionate woman, and this reading is of course the only one consistent with the text.” (Bernard Weller, The Stage, review of Wilde’s Salome, cited by Hoare 98)

Reference: Hoare, Philip.  1997.  Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century.  New York: Arcade Publishing.