from thine eyes

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This is a production still from Signal Theatre's 2011 production of "from thine eyes" with performers Ceinwen Gobert & Michael Caldwell.  This work written by Yvette Nolan and directed by Michael Greyeyes, and co-produced by Native Earth Performing Arts, is organized around 4 central sites and an intermediary site--an meta-environment that spans the other 4 sites, both temporally and physically.  The intermediary site, where the piece opens, is deep inside the earth--where we discover the diggers, who awake without consciousness, without memory.  The act of uncovering the other 4 sites initiates each section/ site.  Site # 2 explores the memories of a man, named Henry. He recites his marriage vows.  A woman appears: Valerie, his wife.  Together they begin to dance--his memory.  But slowly his memories/ constructions inevitably reveal moments of violence and cruelty.  Even in this place, his narrative of events cannot rewrite their history.  Valerie again and again submits, until she is faced with a stark choice--life or death.

Site # 2's choreography is visceral and repetitive and the spoken text, written by Nolan, is equally so, finishing with a poem by Daniel David Moses (used with the artists' permission).

Photograph by Cylla von Tiedman.