Coit

A performance/installation reflecting on love/sex/gender, war, and religion.

There will be 1 - 3 Performances and the installation will remain open to the public to walk through.


11 performers:

1 hermaphrodite divine being
1 female lead <The Waiting Girl>
4 female supporting performers
1 male lead <The Soldier>
4 male supporting performers

There are three tiers to the installation/stage:

Tier One: Le Jardin
Tier Two: Le Champ de Bataille
Tier Three: L'espace divin

Act One,Tier One: Le Jardin

This is an utopic space, an interpretation of a sort of Garden of Eden. The environment (par example: the ground and foliage, fabric wall hangings, and applied patterns to walls perhaps) will be a camouflage of layered floral patterns taken from many cultures and time periods. The costumes will mimic the background so that the environment and the inhabitants are one and the same.This is the representation of the combined universal energy of love, sexuality, and creation. Le Jardin is the space where we see the highest potential of connection to this energy realized.

The performance begins here and We see Les gens frolicking, arguing, expressing a full range of emotion. This is the space they live in and they are sort of going about their daily activities, all 10 men and women.

*note: the choreography of this scene will be worked out either with the performers or a choreographer.

Act Two, Tier Two: Le Champ de Bataille

We hear a bell toll. This is where the audience learns why they've been called here, and what the performers are doing. The performers preparing to, and then actually reenact the time before The Divine Revelation. (The Divine Revelation was when the hermaphrodite being came to them and freed them of their sexual stereotypes and constructs and they individually realized their creative/sexual potential and the insanity of war and genocide).

The performers push past the walls/fabric of Le Jardin and reveal Tier Two. There are three distinct vertical "rows/areas" (receding like rows into a short distance perhaps 18 feet mimicking a cathedral floor plan with the isle down the middle). On the left are "the women" and on the right are "the men" separated by the huge middle isle.

Le Gens ascend into their respective spaces and prepare to get ready by putting on combinations of historical costumes. The women wear a mix-match of all confining, cumbersome, or concealing costumes. The men have a culmination of mix matched militant garb which they trade and combine to make their own suits of armor. This should be played out in the ways indigenous people who were being colonized responded to the costumes of the militia: enthralled with the garb but who's context takes on different meaning once they themselves put it on.

The air is jovial and they have to remind themselves to be serious. They boys keep stealing glances of the girls, but their buddies nudge them into remembering they are supposed to pretend not to see them. The girls playfully remind the boys of this as well when they look over.

Once they are suited up the charade begins. They begin to engage in their respective stereotypical activities. The women look half-bored half-amused. They lounge, knit, "cook", sew, pace and wait. This isn't something they are accustomed to - the costumes itch, the wigs keep falling, they sit with their legs open.... They are joyful but trying to pretend to act the part of these stereotypes all the while watching the men like they are watching a play.

We see the men beginning to engage in war. They are not sure what the weapons do, and they are not sure why they are send here to do this. They try to act as macho as possible, try to be tough and angry. Sometimes one will break character and wink at one of the girls, but they are not supposed to acknowledge them.

As they get into their activities the tension increases and the audience starts to feel the real threat of war and death and the fear and longing of the women.

soon we see one female begin to meander toward the back of the space and disappear through some sort of door/screen. slowly the girls follow her one by one, each with "a chore". We then notice one man being singled out and moving through all the fighting as if he has something calling him and he disappears into a similar door/portal.

The left and right sides of Tier Two become dark and Tier Three is illuminated.

Act Three, Tier Three: L'espace divin

We see a HUGE burst where the Divine begin presides, upstage center. This Divine being is a hermaphrodite. No name, no distinction. Just bright and full. The source of energy. The light blinds the boy (downstage left) but the women are accustomed to it - they sit facing the audience downstage right, The waiting Girl,looking off into the distance, and her attendants surrounding her.

Soon The Soldier is released from the blinding light (he has received openness of heart, mind, spirit, body, and sexuality from the divine spirit.) After regaining composure he sees The Waiting Girl, and approaches her. They engage in a physical dialogue.

*choreography collaboration

His desire to "obtain" her and they push and pull each other. Soon he has disrobed her. In a reciprocal act mixed with curiosity, excitement and play she rips his clothes off. Their "floral" selves are revealed and they look at each other.

She doesn't look surprised, but "found out" - she's known about their "floral" selves. She's waiting his response. Will he show anger, fear, or sadness? Will he retreat? Will he rejoice? She waits.

He is overwhelmed by the beauty, the unity, and the cohesion. In an attempt to hold this moment he dresses in her garments. She mimics him in an attempt to offer acceptance of his action because he still seems weary.

They hold a moment of gaze and then we see the light of the divine being push him forward, down the isle into the floral environment. He descends first. The girl disrobes from his garments and follows a few paces behind him, followed by the "attending women" who have also disrobed from their garments. As the "attending women" descend the isle (like bridesmaids after a marriage) they are then joined by the men who come through the wall on the right where they have been waiting to disrobe, which they do as they exit and join the women. Everyone is in floral now and the commence back to the floral environment and recognize the audience.

They invited the audience down into the installation and there begins and open discussion.