no cause: an evening of solos reframing iconic women of Shakespeare

For the 13th Asheville Butoh Festival, I am thrilled to be presenting “no cause: an evening of solos reframing iconic women of Shakespeare.” I have been working hard on the dances as they have evolved and am excited to be performing the current incarnations of these pieces.

Today is Shakespeare’s death day, so I was thinking about what has led me to this point. I was not really a big Shakespeare fan until the last few years. I played The Fool in King Lear and designed the costume for and played Ariel in The Tempest in middle school/early high school when we did theater showcases, but never really felt connected to the material. Julie Taymor’s films opened my mind, as they are truly inspiring and helped me see Shakespeare a bit differently.  But actually, a few years ago I was intrigued by violets. Yep, just some flowers in my yard. This took me down a rabbit hole and I fell in love with Ophelia from Hamlet, which led to the piece weedy trophies. From there I became obsessed with Lady Macbeth and created arterial spirits, then most recently the daughters of King Lear, who I explore in nothing. My investigation of these characters is from my personal feminist perspective, turning the stories on their heads. I am excited to see where else this journey and new found love of Shakespeare’s female characters will lead me.

I will be performing these three solos at the 13th Asheville Butoh Festival on 4/28 and 5/2 at 8pm at the BeBe Theater. I hope you can join me and are able to attend all of the workshops and amazing performances. My previous blog post about the festival has all of the info! Tickets are available at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4187131