MINE
Created by Fitzgerald & Stapleton, Poppy Kane, Jenny Doyle, Kay O’ Grady, Grannymar and Jeffrey Gormly.
Supported by: Jeffrey Gormly, choreograph.net and Daghdha Dance Company

Performer: One female of any age. Performer is free to create her own stage directions where they are not already specified.

Scene: Black box space. One mirror is preset on the floor upstage right. There is one large structure upstage centre – a free standing board similar in appearance to a door, 8ft x 5ft, covered in black felt.

Costume: A reflection of your cultural significance

Lighting direction: Throughout the show unless another lighting state is stated the stage is lit according to the following description:

“Just like real life but in really sharp focus. It has no texture, so much so that the absence of texture is noticeable. It has no atmosphere and you can physically feel the lack of air when you’re in it.”

The performer is onstage as the audience enter – her stance reminiscent of a thread of smoke seen from afar.

Voiceover by lighting operator: “I apologise for being so late, my laptop was borked for over a week and I had a bug myself. I hope I am still in time to add my contribution.”

Lighting direction: Blackout
During the blackout the balance of energy is compromised and existence becomes lopsided.

Lighting direction: Lights blink almost on and almost off until eventually fading back up to previous state to accompany the following moments..

The performer is both lying down onstage downstage left in a usual sleeping position and outside of herself upright staring down at herself in the darkness. She edges closer to herself.
This edging continues as she speaks the following text which definitely weighs more than she expects –

“I’d forgotten there were stars”

Pre-recorded sound: A Factory noise starts slow and crescendos gradually over 10 seconds drowning out the performer who recites the following text, singing and talking to no-one:

“I want to dance my way to hell
And if I don’t get there well well well well
I like to dance I like to dream
And I’m gonna get a dance machine
So nobody stand in my way
Cus I’m gonna rule this world some DAY”

The recitation is repeated three or four times over and beneath the factory noise which – once having reached its crescendo gradually begins to fade out.

The ground slowly wakens and comes to life. Still reciting the poem the performer walks in step to her singing along a tree lined avenue, or maybe not. She can just as easily roll around the room engaging with every aspect of her environment. Her recital incorporates the crunch of a footfall on a carpet of dry leaves. She stops, points and mouths the word “shoes”. Immediately a response comes pinging via the voiceover from the lighting operator –

“Hey well done….I see you managed to put your bra on”.

She takes a second short step with her second foot, then another then another, moving off rapidly in tiny baby steps waving her arms towards downstage left. She stops in deep concentration; sometimes the most adventurous thing she can do is stop and do nothing at all. Her eyes dance with delight and she tries to paint a picture in words.

She picks up the mirror and has the following conversation with her reflection

Performer: can I get pregnant from kissing?
Reflection: Banging and hammering, banging and hammering was the order of the day
Performer: Which translation of Proust should I read?
Reflection: That particular moment was no different to any other only that I took the time to notice it

Her exhaled breath seems to carry the words from her to her neighbour. She walks sideways to her left the pace of inhaling and exhaling determining or being determined by her side stepping, but once breathing ends her side stepping continues until she is behind the large black door-like structure. She makes the hushed whirring noises of computers for company.

Projection: Poppy Kane video 1 is projected onto stage area of choice, must be entirely visible to the audience.

Performer returns onstage from behind the door and moves downstage centre accompanying each step with a rhythmic clop, clop, clop noise reminiscent of a town hall clock or church bell. Meeting her audience half way she arranges her body into a cliché. She forms two beaks with her hands and uses them to mime a conversation between 3 characters – pub lobster, nemesis and Grady. At points this conversation is punctuated by a pinging, and instant office banter with colleagues many miles, continents or time-scales away.

PUB LOBSTER: So good knowing that he’s probably proper bald by now, what a douche.
NEMESIS: I am a teapot with turkey legs and a turkey mouth, I go “gobble gobble gobble” when you pour me!
PUB LOBSTER: But sure that’s that the past is the past etc etc…(it drinks) Damn good, damn good.
GRADY: So what’s the story with you and Jim?
PUB LOBSTER: Jim? Don’t you mean Tim?
GRADY: No you know Jim, the guy with the chin thing?
PUB LOBSTER: Oh yeah, Jim! Forgot about that one. No I meant Tim you know the one before that, the
weird hair guy, bit of a lisp…
GRADY: How many has it been now? Do you want to count them again?
NEMESIS: Did you know that more than 66% of people don’t smile at me?

Pub Lobster throws four Lobster Shapes whilst moving on a diagonal path upstage right accompanied by the Katy Perry song Fireworks.

Sound cue: Katy Perry ‘Fireworks’ plays for the duration of the four lobster shapes on the diagonal.

Blackout

Lighting direction: Create a snow globe effect with a disco ball.
The performer engages her whole body in a dance made up of circles within circles, all contained in one infinite circle. This dance takes her all over the stage, now and again whilst she is dancing disconcertion creeps in. There are moments when she notices she is not the ringmaster of the dance. During one of these moments she says the following in the voice of a woman in her mid twenties –

“Some people made timetables for me and I didn’t ask them to do that, but I have to go to those places at those times or I will be punished.”

The points in the circle move out of their perfect circle shape pushing and pulling the dancer in some direction in a motion not necessarily her own.
To conclude the dance she stops, saying –

“feet, the circle of my life.”

Lighting direction: Slow fade to black.
During this lighting change the performer speaks with the effort of frailty etched on her face –

“Can I get Proust from kissing? Which translation of pregnant should I read?”

Projection: Poppy Kane 3 video is projected onto stage area of choice, must be entirely visible to the audience.

Lights come back up and the following text is to be interpreted by the performer as an ending either spoken or danced or both.

Trust is important. Without the last bit of the dance the next isn’t possible.