Love Trade Elizabeth Hess / The Hess Collective
About This Show
LOVE TRADE is an exploration of gender and cultural assumptions in upheaval.
The piece uncovers a love tangle between the Western goddess Demeter—frozen in eternal springtime—and Persephone—her restless daughter—who wanders away from the Motherland. Somewhere in No Man’s Land she encounters the Eastern god, Shiva—intense and mysterious—and is immediately attracted to his exotic ‘otherness.’
Persephone and Shiva hunger for connection, but Demeter, disguised as the Eastern goddess Dhumavati—the beholder of smoke—infects their meeting. They descend into the Underworld where they undergo the death of false dreams, as Persephone morphs into the Eastern goddess Kali—ruler of creation and destruction—and Shiva into Hades—king of the Underworld.
All three are finally released into their full humanity through the experience of love, and emerge from the depths transformed and transfigured.
About the Artists
Elizabeth Hess’ acclaimed solo work has been performed around the globe: SPOILED, at SUNY Conference on Masculinities and Stage Left Studio in New York; DUST TO DUST in Bucharest, Kiel, Stockholm, Prishtina and New York at LPTW New Play Festival, New World Stages; Stage Left Studio and UN Conference on Gender Violence; LIVING OPENLY & NOTORIOUSLY, a solo trilogy – BIRTH RITE, DESCENT, AT/ONE in Berlin, Bath, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Toronto, Yerevan and Off-Broadway.
Elizabeth is currently developing several plays and projects: LOVE TRADE, a multidisciplinary performance piece; NO EVIL, a triptych of fabulist tales – PERFECT CURIOSITY, MELTDOWN, SALVAGED – developed at The O’Neill Center and NYU; NOMADS, a heightened realist work – developed at The New Group and The Lark. She is also writing a book, ACTING & BEING: Explorations in Embodied Experience – slated for publication with Macmillan in 2017 – based on her methodology culled from teaching acting/playwriting at New York University, National Theater Institute (The O’Neill), Fordham University, Sarah Lawrence College, New York Theater Intensives, New York Summer School of the Arts, master classes and workshops internationally.
Lucas Syed is a theatre composer working in both the musical-theatre and contemporary music worlds. He studied at The New School University and recently joined the ranks of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop. His work has been seen in a variety of spaces, including NY Theatre Barn, Dixon Place, and The Duplex Cabaret. Current projects include an original musical about the Bronte family (currently in development with Theater In Asylum), as well as a contemporary adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Thursday, December 15 at 7:30pm
General Admission
$15 in advance
$18 at the door
Students/Seniors/idNYC
$12
50 minutes
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Credits
Written & performed by Elizabeth Hess
Composer Lucas Syed
Collaborator Gina Stevensen
Photo credit: Jennifer Waxman