Enter Claire’s brain. A psychic parasite lives there: a hungry ghost, her mother. In order to exorcise this haunt from her brain, femme pathos breaks open on the Brocken at Walpurgis Night: a gay bacchanal where the doctor and Three Lords attempt to surgically remove the pathogen of misplaced femininity – or was it homosexuality – or some other trauma lodged in the depressed body? Claire and her mother un/become each other in the limbo of a dance-theater spectacle seeking to answer the queer ingenue’s burning question: “What is insanity without the patriarchal landscape?”
femme pathos is an autobiographic play that has been developed in stages for several years. The development has been slow and a process in artistic dialogue with my mother, Mary. Its goal, writ large, is to heal trauma. I am sure it fails, but my hope is that it is failing better every time.
History
- READING @ underground zero festival reading series playground zero, curated by Saviana Stanescu // July, 2014 // directed by Lacy Post // featuring Eva Peskin, Christopher McCloskey, Crichton Atkinson, Meghan Kennedy, Amy Pedulla, Leonie Bell
- STAGED READING @ Jump Start Festival at Medicine Show Theater // May, 2015 // directed by Lacy Post // featuring Eva Peskin, Christopher McCloskey, Maia Karo, Arielle Goldman, Kelsey Carnill, Leonie Bell // sound by Lacy Post and Claire Moodey
- WORKSHOPS in fall 2015 co-directed by Lacy Post and Claire Moodey featuring choreographers, sound artists, performers
- EXCERPT PERFORMANCE @ Interrobang!? Festival curated by Title:Point in the Vital Joint at Silent Barn // April 2016 // directed by Lacy Post and Claire Moodey // featuring Claire Moodey, Ernest Goodmaw, Sophie Thunberg, Maia Karo, Kelsey Carnill // sound design by Sandy Gordon // puppets and masks by Claire Moodey
- READING EXCERPT @ Scenes and Zines at The Living Gallery curated by Phillip Gerson // March 2017 // directed by Lacy Post // featuring Claire Moodey, Ernest Goodmaw, Maxwell Cramer // sound and masks by Claire Moodey // choreography by all
- PRODUCTION @ The Brick Theater as part of The Exponential Festival // January 2018 // directed by Lacy Post // featuring Claire Moodey, Ernest Goodmaw, Leonie Bell, Maxwell Cosmo Cramer, Janelle Robinson // sound design by Sandy Gordon featuring music and sounds by Causings, Cheer Accident’s Thymme Jones, and, and Bob Singley’s Whalemouth Radio // masks and costumes by Karen Boyer // lighting by Megan Lang // choreography by Melissa Brading and Ernest Goodmaw
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