Projection Solo, refined / Shy projection solo with Cyn spectator

Here is a refined version of Shy's projection solo with Maud.

password for both: Maud


And here is a quick and dirty experiment with Cyn playing a spectator in the audience watching Shy (and Maud).

Ninda Stuti + Projection Solo

Today we came up with a draft for the ninda stuti; the music is a mock-up and still to be fleshed out.  We tried two different emotional/character approaches. There are two takes of each emotional approach, one in costume and one in regular rehearsal clothes. 

password "Maud"

We also worked on Shy's projection solo, specifically the new slideshow of Maud on Shy's sari.

Dance Maud Dance

Here's a simple slideshow I made for Shy's projection solo, of Maud dancing on Shy's sari.  I tried some more complicated things -- moving the image left and right, or making her do chakkars, but my sense is that the more complicated I make the video, the more it will take away from Shy's capacity to move and interact with the images. 

password: Maud

A couple earlier explorations:
Maud does chakkars

Same as above but with left and right movement

Shy projection solo + Miserlou

Here's a revision of Shy's projection solo (Cyn's role and position onstage TBD) and a quick and dirty Miserlou improv.

password for both: "Maud"

Projection Solo

Miserlou Study

And a super raw movement improv to Miserlou music:

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

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Spectators Watching "The Vision of Salome"

Today Shy and I developed some material consisting of different spectators watching an invisible Maud Allan dance The Vision of Salome.  Currently, we're imagining that there would be spotlights that fade in and out so that certain spectators are highlighted at different times, with some overlap between the characters.  Each of us would play two different characters: Verna, an aristocratic white guy, a desiring South Asian femme, and a disgusted South Asian femme.  We would probably extend the desiring South Asian femme section to make it overlap more with the disgusted femme at the end.

Password for all: "Maud"

Cyn as Tophat Guy

Shy as Verna
Cyn as Desiring Femme (inspired by Babli!)

Shy as Disgusted Femme
Here's the script for when each character appears in relation to the text:
[Tophat] 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.  [Verna joins] 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.  [Tophat fades] Upon her white flesh were the stains, dark crimson clots.  [Verna fades, Desiring Femme starts] 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.  (Disgusted femme starts). As one from whom life passes very quickly, she crumpled to the floor. (Desiring femme fades) From her hands dropped the head.  It rolled upon her breast and fell beside her, leaving upon her white body a crimson trail.

Letters to Maud from Verna and from Cynthia

Here's a letter based on a compilation of actual letters from Verna Aldrich.  I found it hard to draw from the full gamut of her writings and represent the full complexity of their relationship while still having it be a convincing letter, since their relationship changed so much over time (from worshipful to resentful of Maud's taking advantage of her).  This is from a more worshipful moment.

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 reassurance -- I can't imagine you having gallstones -- you never have had. 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.

I know how hard it all is but you must be brave and carry on like my little soldier.  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 every bit of you I have known has shown a great, marvellously lovely character-and I want that to come out. 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 circumstances 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!

Yours always,

Verna

 

Dear Maud,

This was supposed to be a love letter.

            At first I was fascinated and a little horrified by you: by your unapologetic sensuality, your skin, your queerness, your blatant Orientalism, this aura of the “Cult of the Clitoris” that smolders around your image. 

            But the more I came to know about you, the less I liked you.  I was irritated that you fell into the trap of suing Billings for libel – for the unthinkable charge of being a woman-loving woman – resulting, of course, in the destruction of your career.  But more than that, I hated how you treated Verna, your loving and devoted partner, using and abusing her, demanding that she maintain those palatial quarters with money neither of you had, how you kept her under your thumb, how you explicitly went against her request and asked her relatives for money, compromising her relationship with her family.  I wonder how your relationship with Verna was affected by your relationship with Margot Asquith, the prime minister’s wife, who funded those quarters for twenty years before stopping.  I hated that you were a liar and a leech and a manipulator.  I understand changing your name to escape the infamy of your brother’s murder trial, but pretending that your parents were highly educated doctors in your autobiography?  Manipulating the press the way you did?  Your life is this nightmarish mix of the tabloids and conspiracy theories, from your brother drawing and quartering women in the church to your entanglement with the non-existent Black Book coupling gays, Germans, Jews, and the highest echelons of power in England during WWI.  It feels, so weirdly, like the fake news of today, the contingency and precarity of truth, the inability to tell what is real.

            So where does desire come into play?  What possible pleasure can I take in thinking and dancing about you?  How do I make a piece that wants to be about women reclaiming desire for other women, about queer pleasure, about flipping the script with a wink and a naughty glance, when all I feel for you is disgust and revulsion?  How can spending time with you be generative, life-giving, fun, sexy?

            In South Indian bhakti there’s a tradition of the ninda stuti.  It’s a weird, wonderful, counter-intuitive move whereby you basically trash-talk god, and it’s a form of devotion.  Devotion through hatred and enmity. 

            So here is my invocation:

May I disrespect you. 

May I take liberties with you. 

May I misrepresent you. 

May I seek revenge on your image.  

May there be pleasure in taking you down a notch. 

May there be pleasure in imagining you as you never were.

Let this piece be my ninda stuti to you.

With queer disgust,
Cynthia

QUESTIONS:

-Would this be compelling to read either of these letters to audience members one-on-one?  What do they add to the existing material?  Do they succeed in bringing out queerness and queer desire?

Re: my letter:

-I think it's too long -- suggestions for places to cut?  Maybe this line: "I wonder how your relationship with Verna was affected by your relationship with Margot Asquith, the prime minister’s wife, who funded those quarters for twenty years before stopping."

-The paragraph about desire -- while I think it works within the letter itself -- runs the risk of telling the audience what the piece is about before they see it.  Thoughts?

         
A reference on ninda stuti:
https://nikhiletc.wordpress.com/2016/07/02/ninda-stuti-trash-talking-god-2/

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Creative Exploration: a letter to Maud, from Shyamala

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 fantasy.  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 Baptiste on a platter…did you really kiss it?  Well, I suppose I would kiss it too if I could sever the head of patriarchy and kiss it goodbye.  Death can be sexy if it’s the death of an oppressive regime!   

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.  Really, though I’ve heard that you lavish your attentions on your female secretary? 

So why do you do it then? 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 and topple empires?   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.  

Yours Truly,

Shyamala

Creative Invitation: letters to Maud

Collectively we came up with the pre-show idea to read love letters to audience members.  We would address the audience members as Maud and we will be dressed as her secretary/ourselves/other characters in the show.

So we will each write a letter to Maud, or compile excerpts of her secretary's letters by May 17.

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

Pre-show score

Pre-show installation Score:

1) Letters to Maud

Version 1) "Text" station

1 performer (in costume) sitting. Audience member (up to 3 or  4 at a time need to sit down opposite her. Performer reads Verna's letter(s) to Maud Allan to the small group of audience members. One or two letters at a time. We could play with reading to a small group vs changing audience members we address: one letter to one audience member


Version 2)

Three of us mingle among audience in the intermission - we walk up to them, address them a Maud, lead them a letter

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?

"Chasing ghosts," Reviews Exploration

Maud and Me

I made an audio mash up of her reviews (text is below) and improvised with my live body and her still projection, as well as my live body with her moving projection.  This is edited together the most interesting parts.  Note that sometimes I was improvising without the sound so the rhythm doesn't always match up. 

  
password: wonderful


Wonderful Flesh Experiments from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


This is the moving projection I created to the sound score.  It was too busy to insert the live body with in all places but there was one spot in particular that I liked.  I put it here in case it's useful some other way.  

password:  wonderful



 Here's the text for the audio, a mash-up of the reviews:

sins of her wonderful flesh

sins of her wonderful flesh

such delicious embodiment might win forgiveness with sins of her wonderful flesh. 

sins of her wonderful flesh

sins of her wonderful flesh

swayed by passion, her mouth parched for kisses with sins of her wonderful flesh. 

sins of her wonderful flesh

sins of her wonderful flesh

Eastern femininity, writhing body, voluptuous and wonderful flesh. 

sins of her wonderful flesh. 

sins of her wonderful flesh. 

slender and lissome, exquisite ecstasy, perspiring and wonderful flesh

sins of her wonderful flesh

sins of her wonderful flesh

One moment she is vampire…next she is lynx, swayed by such wonderful flesh

sins of her wonderful flesh. 

sins of her wonderful flesh. 

wildly jerking, swaying with passion, blossom into wonderful flesh

sins of her wonderful flesh. 

sins of her wonderful flesh. 

Her laughs and her sighs, she shrinks and she vaults, with sins of her wonderful flesh. 

sins of her wonderful flesh  

Questions:
1.  What parts do you find most compelling of the projection with live body?
2.  How do you read or interpret the live body, projection and audio coming together?
3. What other ideas come to mind?

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?