Just a couple visual things and wanted to esp show Skye...

This guy makes houses out of free stuff. Too bit and clean, but makes me think:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/09/02/garden/20090903-recycled-slideshow_index.html

field trip

http://www.museumofrussianicons.org/

Scripture

So, following the idea of the moving people on stage at all times...

Could the script perhaps live as a series of stories? Since that is what Baba Yaga exists as, and hopefully this project will convey something of that existence, it makes sense to me to work in that way. The transitions could therefore be a more physical aspect of the show with all those actors, maybe shifting things around on the set as well, maintaining that organic aspect and bringing the space to life. Perhaps the transitions could be flexible and even improvised by some cast members, so long as they're doing things that make sense.

So I propose we discuss this and then come up with a number of sections we want - do we still want to begin and end with Rachel and/or Audrey's similar stories? - and I am willing to write a couple if someone else will take some on as well. If I know who else wants to write we can decide who wants to use which content (characters, themes, motifs??) to prevent overlapping stuff, but also to establish threads and later discuss order. I think this can be less stressful the more people helping move this part along, and I think collaboration will be the golden ticket. Lets do it.

Ensembleee

I was thinking about casting (imagine now that I have just thrown up into my hand)

How to people feel about making this more of an ensemble cast to the point of, like, they are all in each scene even if they are just playing a chair, and they switch constantly, denoting changes with their bodies and with possibly like a scarf or something? I think that it would go along with our whole multiplicity thing pretty well and would create this other world more completely. How would this affect our writings. Does it do anything for ya'll?

LOVE EVA

ah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmJwn24YXqQ

a few more things

Baba Yaga tells everyone to sleep, its time for sleep, its been a damn long day and I'm tired. Sit in the chair, it is a throne. Sleeping, her hair grows. The house becomes choked with it, it pushes out through cracks and windows, out through nail holes from paintings that have been taken down and out the chimney. A million years go by. We wake up in a cacoon of white hair, no one is going to cut you out.

1. Baba Yaga is a nasty old woman who lives in the woods and eats little boys who could one day grow up and be in charge of everything
2.Baba Yaga is a lonely old lady who enjoys alternative modes of transportation
3. Baba Yaga is an eccentric person who befriends various social misfits (i.e. diembodied hands, men who match their horses, self propelling gates)
4. Baba Yaga is your grandmother
5. Baba Yaga is your fairy godmother
6. Baba Yaga is an annoyance that you swat away like a fly
7. Baba Yaga changes your life forever
8. Baba Yaga is the little voice in your head
9. Baba Yaga is your future
10. Baba Yaga isn't real

How's everyone doing on structure/plot/getting this shit finished?

timeline response

I went through and copy and pasted everything that people have written into a word document, so we can start examining what we have. We seem to have a lot of dialogue pieces, as well as a lot more descriptive image pieces (which could serve as transitions between the scenes/dialogues perhaps?). I think there are a lot of similarities at least in the voice and tone with which we have approached writing for this project, and we should try to organize what we have in order to determine what we need/want to add.

I'm going to send out the word document I put together with all the pieces in one place (hopefully I didn't forget anything), so we can all have it to visually move stuff around and copy and paste, rather than having to go through all the blog posts. I think a logical next step would be for everyone to try and come up with a possible structure or plot flow as they see it, working with what we already have?

After we work out a detailed outline, I think it'll be easier to know what types of prompts and things we need from there. And I think it'd be good to start taking prompt lines from the pieces we already have (perhaps it would be a good exercise for everyone to pick a line out of someone else's piece and expand upon it? things like that).

Timeline?

Hey guys,

So I just got a bunch of my information from NTI, and it seems as though I will have absolutely no time to work on this project next semester. Not an exaggeration. Also, internet access is super limited (!!!!!!!), so I won't even be that available, for talksies. Basically, what I'm saying is, we need to either get a really solid working draft of this up by the end of summer, or I may have to give up the "shapey" role, and someone else can step in.

The way it's been going has been pretty patchy, with a lot of cool ideas, but not much output or cohesive story/plot. Would it be more helpful for Ashur and I to give more homework assignments? Those seemed kind of random to me. I feel like we just need to all step it up a little bit and get an outline of what happens, and then get going on it.

What do ya'll think?

why chicken legs?

So I was looking up pictures of chicken, thinking about attempting to sketch some chicken legs, when I suddenly asked myself...why chicken legs? Why is BY's house set up on chicken legs? I started doing some research into this matter, and didn't come up with any particularly solid reasons (the only thing was an indication of her sometimes being portrayed as a bird goddess, at one with nature, and that her house being made of chicken feet supports that), but I did come across some other really interesting things.

I found this interesting article about Baba Yaga's hut being considered an entrance into the underworld, making BY a guardian of the passageway between death and life. The most interesting part of the article was that it mentioned that in some versions the hut is not only propped up by chicken legs, but also sits upon a spinning wheel which allows Baba Yaga to spin the thread of life from the bones and entrails of the dead.

I really like that Eva mentioned the word organic, and this whole idea of fungi and decomposition being a natural part of her world...it really fits with this whole idea of her being a guardian of the natural balance to our world.

Horses, sticks, terror, age and beauty

Hey lil pandas, 

I've had some musings of late. Here are some themes I want to explore:

Horses/Daughters: How she acts towards them as sort of a barometer to the rest of the world. Is she being nice? Does she eat them? I also was thinking about connecting the riders as entities that she has married some of her daughters to. And they are now beholden to her. 

I also pulled a couple of phrases from some stuff that rachel posted that I really like and want to pull from :

I'm telling you its not pain, just the embrace of a very strong god.

She thinks famine is nutrition

and Ashur and I have been talking about age and beauty, the rejection of the old and ugly

oh actually, I'm just going to post what he said (hope that's good with you ash):

Fear/terror of an incomprehensible power, one developed by age and solitude instead of by birth or intention... something horrifying (not necessarily evil) that is organic and just as much a part of the world as something beautiful................

beauty juxtapozzed with grotesqueness.........

grotesque organic materials, like funghi and decomposition......

Age - the shunning of the elderly. Society which does not look back in time, or learn from its past although it offers a wealth of information... BY recognizes her position and perhaps fights back against it... maybe she relishes the terror others feel at her power.....

house as organic material, like abig beast in the woods, The space which BY occupies is a beast, in my imagination, from the house and yard to the surrounding trees. I imagine approaching this cabin through the woods, you can only find it by the light seeping through the windows so you wont find it until the sun begins to set.. you can follow the horse riders there. As you approach the trees take on a terrible aspect, they loom over and judge you, and then threaten you. The woods alone prevent the weak from setting foot in the clearing where the house looks down (down? I imagine noticeable elevation from the also noticable chicken feet) upon you with total indifference. The house could care less if your entire species lives or dies. It is something bigger. BY coexists with this house. She neither built nor owns it. She occupies it as a hermit crab would occupy a shell. But we're nowhere near the ocean...

infanticide, (abortion?! fuck...) killing for convenience, the motivation to murder that does not involve hate. I don't think BY is hateful. I don't know why she kills children, but something tells me it has to do with protecting herself...

Sexuality, sexual tension between BY and a strong prince, kind of a power showdown but something else is there... so weird. 

And then I also wrote just the beginning of a scene as a sort of experiment:

Scene opens on Baba Yaga, facing upstage, feeding her horses and singing softly to them. Something makes her turns around and stare out into the twilight.  We see that she is not an ordinary old woman. There is something both intriguing and terrible about her. She looks around and then says to the house

Baba: Another one today: (considers, listens) a girl. alone. quite alone and need of me. (smiles) oh, she needs my gentle guidance. (laughs)

horses shift, they are nervous or excited

Baba: nothing to worry about my girls. Your baba will take care of this one herself.

the night will be here soon. Satisfied now, I hope. It may be a long one.

B.Y. hobbles into the house which lights up at her entry and stokes the stove. The night horseman rights through, dragging with him a tattered and terrified Vasilissa, deposits her and stops to stare at the horses before carrying on. B.Y. comes to the door and stares down at her. 

V: Baba...Baba Roga, I have come her to ask you for your help. I-

Baba: Yes. I know why you thought to come here. You ought to know that this forest is dangerous. 

V: (nods) I had-

Baba: -nowhere else to go. Isn't that always the case. NOthing for baba until something goes wrong.

V: (ashamed) I am sorry. Do you want much for company..out here?

B.Y.: (cackles) (horses stamp) maybe I do. Get inside, girl. I must think.

Some things to figure out: What's going on with the horses? I feel like maybe they have a power over BY that she doesn't want anyone to know about? Man? Does he want vass or is he there for baba? Etc. Where does this go basically?

I was reading in the New Yorker about a stage version of Coraline and it mentioned this stuff, about her going into the other world and how she's really just going into her imagination and I think its like that for most hero-into-other-world deals (pan's labrinth, narnia) but what do we use from it now that we've switch that story type around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego,_and_super-ego

in other news I'm going to stay in a little house on an island in Maine for week with no internet. but I'll be back.

you know when your watching a movie or reading a book or entering a new world and just before you encounter anything really important, while your still trying to figure out where you are some sort of freaky surreal thing floatsfliesruns by and your sucked in?
I would like to have that for the audience.
and also I would like to make pelvis butterflies.

Homework etc.

GIRL: "Baba Yaga, may I ask you a question?"
BY: "If you must, but remember with too much wisdom, you will grow old too soon."
GIRL: "Baba Yaga, where do you go to each day?"
BY: "I go to the forest."
GIRL: "Why do you go to the forest?"
BY: "To search."
GIRL: "Baba Yaga, what are you searching for?"
BY: "If I knew, then I wouldn't have to look for it."
GIRL: "Do you think you will ever find what you're looking for?"
BY: (getting angered) "Fetch me my supper before I eat you instead!"
GIRL: (fetching BY's supper from the great oven) "Baba Yaga, do you eat all your visitors?"
BY: "No. Just the ones that ask too many questions."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBp88UJHfZE
The house in this is inspired by Baba's chicken hut...and i just love the way it moves.

About Structure

I have been thinking about this process partly in terms of the idea that we would, after gathering all this stuff we're producing here, take elements that fit together and combining them into a few loosely tied sections. Looking at the last things Audrey and I wrote, I was thinking it's a shame the audience couldn't see these parallel stories, driven by two different Baba Yagas. So THEN I thought it could be cool if the first part and the last part had this kind of relationship. A story that would maybe have better results with a different BY in the driver's seat. 

Homework half

Vasilissa is stumbling in the forest, carrying an unlit torch. The black rider of night passes and she falls and drops the torch. We hear the hoof beats the way she does with her ear to the ground. The night follows behind the rider like a curtain being pulled. The darkness reveals Baba Yaga’s house as it lights up in response. It stretches and yawns. At the same time, Vasilissa picks herself up and sees that her hand is bleeding. She tears the hem from her skirt and wraps it around her hand. The house quivers, shakes, creaks. Vasilissa sees the house, sobs, runs toward it. When she reaches the door she composes herself completely.

 

Baba Yaga: Is there anything to say?

 

Vasilissa: I- my family please. I’ve taken too much time and- (remembers herself.) Baba (BY snorts) Baba Yaga- (BY shows dissinterest) Baba Cloantza*(see note @ bottom). (She has BY’s attention). Please. I need fire. My step sisters and mother are waiting. Our hearth is cold. The wind blew the open the shutters and- (BY raises her hand)

 

BY: The wind.

 

V: (Unsure) Yes.

 

BY: He and I have spoken.

 

V: (looks away) Please.

 

BY: He was invited.

 

V: The fire. We’ll starve.

 

BY gestures to a pot on the table, inviting V to stay.

 

V: The fire.

 

BY looks disgusted. With a gesture, flame bursts from the pot. V realizes she no longer has her torch. She looks dismayed. BY sneers grotesquely and V whirls toward the door.

 

BY: Wait. (the house creaks violently. BY touches the wall gently, calming it. She leans in very close to V.) Wind? (V nods) Fire?

 

V: Yes.

 

BY produces wood for a torch from some unlikely place. She unwinds the bloody bandage from V’s hand and around the wood to make the torch. As she does:

BY: The wind and the fire may quarrel but they will also make their bed in the thatch.

The fire leaps. She lights the torch. V reaches for it but BY holds it back.

Tell your step mother to mind who she invites in to her house.

 

BY gives her the torch and V flees the house. BY watches her go, waves her hand at the fire pot and all goes dark.

 

 

*Baba Cloantza is another name for BY meaning something like “old hag with broken teeth.” The other option I was thinking of here was “Baba Jadwiga.” Jadwiga is the name that I’ve read “Yaga” is derived from. This choice raises an interesting question for me. Would BY be made more likely to listen if someone appealed to her as more fearsome (BC) or if they appealed to some obscure and perhaps long forgotten humanity? or maybe it depends…?

and ps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0b9FksBItg&feature=PlayList&p=BE2D7AEC9C71BEA0&index=49 (halfway through)

and...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlrhxgKIOrA

homework

Vasilissa meets Baba Yaga and they Dance

There is a house in the woods. Its not quite nighttime but the lights inside glow out onto the path and fence surrounding it. Leaves rustle, the house sighs a little. The rustling gets louder and a girl appears from the woods. Just as she is noticing the house, and the light and the fence and the sighing a horseman in black gallops by in a whoosh. The force of him passing spins her around in a full circle and it is dark like a light switch has been flipped. The lights from the house lights the girl’s face with a warm glow and we can see nothing behind her. Then, a face looms over her shoulder; Baba Yaga is standing just behind her, completely unnoticed. The girl glides forward into the house, Baba behind her copying every movement. They both reach for a lantern on the wall and take it down, both stoop to pick up a button from the floor and both lean over to place it on the table. The girl lifts the lantern over her head and Baba Yaga gently grabs hold of her wrists and spins her until they face each other. A horse screams, there is fear and panic in the girl’s eyes as she looks into the face of Baba Yaga and then she flees the house taking the light with her. As she runs past, Baba Yaga grabs hold of the ribbon around her waist and is left holding it in the dark.

Baba Yaga, where are your daughters?
You know, house, you know. (weary)
Do I? Tell me, mother Baba, where are they?
You were there weren’t you? Why does it matter whether I say it aloud or not. (holding it in)
Oh it doesn’t really, I was just wondering
(silence, it is scary)
Are they out for a walk?
(pressure)
Are they fetching water from the well?
(wait, wait)
Are they playing a game? Hiding in the closet again…
I ATE THEM! THEY ARE IN MY STOMACH! THEY ARE GONE BECAUSE I ATE THEM!!!!
(ringing after the explosion)
Thank you.

girl: Baba Yaga, you never eat from your garden, why do you plant it?
Baba: Bait. (bites the head off a rabbit)

If we didn't want to have the house actually talking which might seem a little forced the house lines could just be implied with noise or music, the building tension, the silences and the breaking point are what important about that.
and I was thinking how little moments showing some crazy time might be fun. and I read a story where she bites the heads off of cats.

Two poems about grandmothers

my grandmother 
doesn’t know pain 
she believes that 
famine is nutrition 
poverty is wealth 
thirst is water
her body like a grapevine winding around a walking stick 
her hair bees’ wings 
she swallows the sun-speckles of pills 
and calls the internet the telephone to america
her heart has turned into a rose the only thing you can do 
is smell it 
pressing yourself to her chest 
there’s nothing else you can do with it 
only a rose
her arms like stork’s legs 
red sticks 
and i am on my knees 
howling like a wolf 
at the white moon of your skull 
grandmother 
i’m telling you it’s not pain 
just the embrace of a very strong god 
one with an unshaven cheek that prickles when he kisses you.                                                                                                              -Grandmother by valzhyna mort  (Belarusian poet. This is a translation) 

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be

at last a woman
in the old style sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt grandchild sliding
on off my lap a pleasant
summer perspiration

that's my old man across the yard
he's talking to the meter reader
he's telling him the world's sad story
how electricity is oil or uranium
and so forth I tell my grandson
run over to your grandpa ask him
to sit beside me for a minute I
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips. -Here by Grace Paley

Bosnian witch

Ba' bush kas

also: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28684

Speaking of Sex

I've been reading bits and pieces of the book I've got on my breaks at work and came across these things today.

"The grotesque features of Baba Yaga, and especially the mention of her genitals and buttocks by some male tale-tellers, recalls Kligman's and Jones's view that the image of an ugly witch presents a sexually nonthreatening female."
"Perianez-Chavernoff interprets the physical description of Baba Yaga as a realistic description of peasant life."
"The practice of swaddling accounts for the isolated mention of the parts of Baba Yaga's body. Russian peasant children, rendered immobile, were late to realize the body as an entire entity."
- Baba Yaga The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of Russian Folktal by Andreas Johns

Other intersting things
-Demanding help, refusing to be eaten, calling Baba ugly reflect the [male] hero's need to seperate from his mother, going to see Baba is a right of passage and when you return you will be independent
-In one story Baba has hired smiths and seamstresses to make her an army, she is the warrior leader of them.
-Once a hero sucks on Baba's breasts she treats him like her own child and honors the bond they have.

Reading into that last one a little bit, the way the books talks about it it seems as if the hero is almost tricking Baba Yaga into letting him drink her milk because then she HAS to take care of him because he is her child. Her mothering instinct is assumed.

Sexorcize.

In addition to Ashur's morphotron, I got a little something for ya'll to do. I made a little list of some questions that a character could conceivably ask of Baba Yaga. Pick one (or more!) and write something based on it. I was thinking dialogue, but if you have something else up your sleeve, by all means.

Here dey is:

"Baba Yaga, where are your daughters?"

"Baba Yaga, I see you have a vegetable garden, why do you never eat from it?"

"Baba Yaga, whose boots are these?"

"Baba Yaga, will you not come with me?"

"Baba Yaga, where do you go each day?"

"Baba Yaga, I am very thirsty, might I have some water from your well?"

"Baba Yaga, who was your gate?"

Woop!

Please post your responses in a new blog post so that they show up in e'r'body's newsfeed.

Also: Here are some Charles Arnoldi sculptures that I think apply somehow:

Rexorcize

Vasilissa emerges from the forest. Before her is a house supported by four chicken legs. She hears a galloping horse behind her and from the woods emerges a dark figure riding a black horse, and as he passes night falls. The light shining through the windows suggests warmth but at the same time danger, as if the windows were two glowing eyes. Suddenly Baba Yaga flies down from the treetops on her mortar, landing before the front gate not three feet away from Vasilissa. She gesture with one hand and causes the gate and front door to sling open, and the tangled branches in the front yard to yield a stone path to the door. BY beckons V to follow, which she does. Once inside...

V: Forgive me for intruding, but my stepmother and stepsisters are in desperate need of fire. The night is cold and windy, and our flint has become dull and useless. If it wouldn’t be any trouble, might I -

BY: I know why you’ve come dear. There is fire there in the stove. Take this torch and light it then let me be.

V thanks her and approaches the stove, opens it, lights the torch, and runs out of the house under BY’s malicious gaze.

okay everyladies, the task at hand is to take this segment and rearrange, change, expand, mutate, pervade, and pervert it to your heart’s content. Make something new. Do it by next Thursday and win a prize.

Eva's gonna have something similar 4 erryone.

So here is a random/interesting site http://www.boingboing.net/2005/04/15/amazing-unrealized-r.html

And a less random/also interesting site http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~tales/images.html

What baba yaga wants, I think, changes according to who she is dealing with. In fact, every aspect of her character is very dependent on the person encountering her. So maybe she is identified by those who visit her home, but seeing as they never know much about her, what does that even mean?

I think you guys nailed the chicken house relationship. It seems very much to be an old companion with which she has developed no small amount of codependency.

The play, to me, contains the house - which contains sort of a mess with order, in which only certain things can be found by anyone but the person who understands the mess, an exterior of woods which have their own ominous presence, and the space between where many of the magical occurrences... occur. The sounds of a busy home dominate, always something cooking or boiling or creaking or sweeping or crowing or cackles from no discernible source human or otherwise. Silence should be terrifying.

Stucture? Ugh. What does that even mean.

more reading

http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrrussian.html
http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrBabaYaga.html

russian house

catching up

first off, sorry it's taken me so long to respond to all of these wonderful thoughts...it's amazing how much one misses when only being gone 5 days.

anyways, i have lots of thoughts, not all of which are fully formed yet, so i'll just start with some of them.

i really like this idea of creating a sort of "fabricated russia"...a russia that is an adaptation and culmination of all the different ideas and movements that impacted our american theatre and art world. this idea really clicks for me because it's sort of mimics how i imagine each new baba assimilating to her life, taking in the history of all the baba's previous to her, and adapting them to her chapter of the story.

i think that creating a fabricated world somewhere between reality and fiction would also be very disorienting for an audience...again this idea of dismantling their security. they know this world...or at least they feel like they do, but they also don't know it at all.

whoever had the idea about incorporating smell (audrey?), i love it. i think that's a great way to generate the closeness of a world, but i think it could work really well witht he disorientation of the audience...like when you're walking down a street and suddenly you smell something, and it kind of reminds you of elementary school for some reason but you can't place it and it's unendingly frustrating (does that happen to anyone else or just me?).

in response to eva's questions:

--i'm not sure BY really knows what she wants or what motivates her, and i feel like that's one of the most human things about her

--i think the house could be really representative of the change in the role of BY of the years...as each old BY makes way for a new one, there is some part of her left within the house, something which helps create this history----i'm interested in how the house remembers things? does it try to warn new baba yaga's about making the same mistakes the baba yaga's that came before it made?

--that being said, i feel like the house is very old, and feels grand, in the sense that it contains a long history...sort of like "if the walls could speak..."---what types of things, marks, objects, smells, sounds, are left behind by each baba yaga?

--i feel like the story is more narrative? we're definitely following a specific storyline of a person (BY), but their voice changes and evolves---i don't know if it needs to be clear how the "torch gets passed" every time, but i think there should be an obvious connection between each BY

i think my last thought for this really long post is that while i was going through catching up on everything, the image of russian nesting dolls came to mind, and it felt really fitting with this idea of a slow unravelling of this story, and how each baba yaga rests inside the niche that the previous one left for it.

Characters Discussion: centralized

I realized that the advantage a google group has over the blog is that it tells you about comments, so i thought i would repost some of the comments from audrey's last post, just so everyone can join the discush. Obviously, it would be useful to read audrey's post (characters) first so that these make sense:

Eva said...

Damn gurl, that's a lot of characters. If our whole things is about the mulptiplicity of baba and her journey or whatever, we want her to be the focus, yeah?

I think that we should figure out what we're saying about her, then decide what characters we need based on that. My personal preference would be to err on the side of less, but I'd like to what everyone thinks.

JUNE 12, 2009 6:00 PM 

Audrey said...

I guess I'm just thinking that each Baba is shaped by who she's interacting with, so knowing who she's helping/hurting will effect her

they're her support in a way. Each one doesn't need to have their whole life explained to the audience. and there is over lap between them.
so its like 
a boy, the daughters and their BY
and
Ivan and his BY
and so on

JUNE 12, 2009 6:29 PM

Rachel said...

I think what's really good about audrey's list is that all of those characters say different things about Baba Yaga, and I think that that a great list to have I think I would be a good idea to simplify and expand upon it to make it sort of cause and effect (example: little boy- daughters in oven). I think that from there we can choose aspects that fit together, separate episodes, combine existing stories, etc. 

We started to talk about this in another discussion, but I think that along with a lot of these pretty established relationships, one of the big relationships we can totally work out for ourselves is the one between BY and her house. Like her private and her public self. Revealing both of these will, I think, help to make her really complex, interesting, and central. bam

JUNE 14, 2009 7:33 AM

Audrey said...

house baba relationship could perhaps be established during transitions?

On more reflection, it's not so much the amount of characters that I object to, just the amount of other people's stories. Ivan's story is super involved, where as vaslilililitkaksalisa (whatever, I've given up trying to spell that shit) the beautiful takes place mainly in the yaga world. Except for her marrying the king, and all that bullshit about the silk shirts but who really cares about that anyway?

Characters

After finishing reading the Baba Yaga book I had at school, which had some stories at the end I've come up with a list of characters that I feel its important we include.

1. A boy
2. A girl (Valilisa?)
3. Three Baba daughters
4. Prince Ivan
5. Prince Ivan's fiance (Valilisa grown up?)
6. Animals
a. Wolf
b. Bear
c. Hedgehog
7. Twins (boy and girl)

I don't know if any of you stumbled across Prince Ivan in your reading but I read his story the other day and loved it.
Basically he meets his fiance (depending on how much time we want to contribute to each story he turns her back into a woman from a ferret) and she says she's going to go home and come back the next morning with two ships full of things for them (i.e. payment for the marriage but I like to pretend she was just getting furniture for their house).
Prince Ivan sets off for the shore the next morning but his nasty stepmother sends her little son along with him and when the fiance shows up the little boy puts Ivan to sleep and they cannot wake him. The fiance says "Ok, it must not be enough stuff I'll come back tomorrow with more" and she does but the same thing happens a few times until she says "Fuck it, if he wants me and my stuff he has to come find me. Tell him to make 3 copper hats and 3 steel spears and when he crosses three rivers and three lands and three seas and wears out all the hats and spears then he'll find me."
Long story short, he does that and everytime he wears out one set of things and crosses 1 river, land and sea he comes to a Baba Yaga who says keep going sometimes she hangs out with my sister"
He gets to the third BY and she says "Quick hide in the basement" (made me think of a basesment in the house that the audience could see into and could watch him all squished in and listening) and the fiance comes over.
And she is really mad, basically they have a little girl talk and come to the conclusion that Ivan better fucking not come find her because she would just kick his ass to the curb. So, knowing that Ivan is listening, Baba asks "is there anything he could do if he wanted to win you back?"
and she says "On the sea there is an oak, in the oak a mare's head, in the head a duck, in the duck an egg and in the egg my heart, if he could bring that to me then maybe." and she says good bye and leaves.
So Ivan sets off and saves a man from being put to death so he gets a side kick. As they're walking the come across a wolf, a kite (bird), and a fish that Ivan want to eat but the side kick says dont and they'll help us. So they get to the tree and cut it open and the head falls out which the wolf shakes until the duck falls out which the kite pecks at until the egg falls out which rolls into the ocean but the fish gets it and gives it to Ivan.
They go back to Baba who tells him to get back in the basement and she has the fiance over and puts the egg on her plate and she eats it and suddenly is sad.
"why are you sad?"
"I miss Ivan!"
"Well, good because he's in my basement!" and they all live happily ever after!

For some reason I love this Ivan kid, he's just really nice. And the fiance is relateable and not stupid. And the loosing your heart thing when your heart broken and hiding it away, trying not to feel anything and the struggle to get it back. It just sits right with me.

Russian, American, Bogart, Questions,

I've been thinking about a question that I think it was Skye, mentioned awhile ago about the Russianess of the story, and how much of Russia we were going to incorporate into our play.

I have a few thoughts on this, spurred in part by Anne Bogart:

Russian theatre is probably the biggest influence on American theatre in the last century. Stanislavsky method is the prevailing acting system learned, and smaller American artistic movements were pretty much crushed when the movement started by stanislavsky and the moscow arts theatre reached America.

American theatre also spends a lot of time wishing it were European, and to that end, I am interested in how we can make this Russian story pertinent to an American setting and audience. By setting I mean where we are putting it on, not necessarily the world of the play.

If there is an American way of thinking, way of structuring things, sense of humor, sensibility, which has been endlessly influenced by Russians, how can we address this or embrace it through the creation of this play?

It may be a good idea to reach back and do some research on American theatre traditions like vaudeville, silent movies, expressionism like martha graham, as somewhere to start.

To shove just a little bit more Bogart in here, i have a weensy little quote:

" We enjoy a rich, diverse and unique histroy and to celebrate it is to remember it. To remember it is to use it. To use it is to be true to who we are".

also: I know that we aren't at school right now, and that summer time is blah time, but please guys, respond and read. please?

anxiety is not neurosis

from The Magic Years by Selma Fraiberg, I'll email the whole thing.

More things

First, here are two stills from this russian animation thingy I think is really cool. Thoughts about the oven and the house. These are from a 20 minute animated piece based on a russian story about a wolf. It starts with a lullaby (translated): "Lullaby, Lullaby. Hush little baby don't you cry. Or the little grey wolf will hear. The wolf is always near. Sleep tight baby and be good or he'll take you to the dark and scary woods."

Anyway, on another note, I'm reading Saints and Strangers by Angela Carter (who also wrote the Bloody Chamber). I'm getting a lot from it because it's a bunch of short adaptations/retellings which are totally adult and totally not about sexual abuse (horray!)

I was talking to my bro-in law about it and he was like "Well, aren't they already kind of adult?" Which got me thinking. Those stories are totes for kids. The word isn't "adult," but "scarryasfuck" which we take to mean adult because, culturally, we don't think kids should be scared. So what's with all the abuse stuff? What I've been throwing around is that fairy tales are already simple. They are simple so that you can see yourself and your trials in the story. 

The abuse also simplifies it, but in a super post-Freudian way, explaining it for you neatly so you can't/don't have to interpret it. It's as though Little Red Riding hood went to a psychoanalyst and told him her dream about a wolf, blahblahblah, and he said she was dealing with her Daddy issues. 

Anyway, it's a good book and I really recommend it.

NEXT!

a. read everyones stuff and comment!
b. read eva's post below and comment!
c. how about over the next say, 3 weeks, we all do some sort of visual project (painting, drawing, photo, found object thing, collected things in a jar, you get it) that gives us a general reflection of how we're feeling visual about what we've read/written/felt.

k?
ok!

Sally Forth!

The action, not the actress.

um, that picture was in response to rachel's writing about vassilisa and the heads. But I thought it might catch your attention.

I'm super excited about all the stuff that everyone posted, and I want to talk about where to go from here. We never talked really clearly about what Ashur and my role as 'the shapers' is going to be, and I know that the bearded one and I need to sort of gather up what we have right now and come up with an action plan.

In the mean time, I got really this-is-what-I-would-do-in-play writing-class on this thing and started writing down questions that I thought would help us clarify our direction.

So, in that vein, here are some questions:

What does Baba Yaga want? Like, overall? What's her deal?

What is her relationship to the chickenhouse? Is it her slave? Her BFF? Her coffin?

In your mind, what does the play look like to you right now? Finished product. (what kind of aesthetic are picturing right now, basically?)

What does it sound like?

What sort of structure are you leaning toward? We've talked alot about episodic vs. narrative, what does that mean?

Ok, that's what I got for now.

Also, may I suggest for those of you that use the apple mail (whatever it's called), that you add this blog to your RSS feed so that you know when it's been updated. Just go to file> add RSS feed, and then do manually add URL or whatever it says and then copy and paste.

Please respond to my questions so I don't feel like total nerd, grasping at straws.

eva

its alive take two

its alive!

found this table today, thought of how the things in the house are alive and helpful/hurtful and how we're going to show animation with out having everything moving

A quick jaunt through the history of russia

for anyone who is interested and like me, failed to have any sort of world history in high school

before 987- Pagan time! Tribes, fighting each other, fighting themselves, various religious rituals that dont have a common base or anything like that. crazy time!
987- Prince Vladimir (I'm not sure how they got a prince if everyone was all crazy but the book didnt say) was like "oh hey guys, Orthodoxy looks prettier than other types of Christianity, lets try that!" and so they did, because the art made him feel like he was in heaven, which is nice.
1240- Genghis Khan shows up and beats the shit out of everyone until...
1380- Russians get their act together and fight back
1530-1584 rule of "Tsar and Grand Prince Ivan of Russia" (Ivan the Terrible) who failed at leaving a heir so there was the "Time of Trouble" after he died until...
1613- Romanov Dynasty made everything better until...
Nicholas II was crap and his wife secretly ran everything with the "whimsical" advice of Rasputin
but then Bloody Sunday + WWI = Pissed off poor people and REVOLUTION!!! AHHH!!
and then communism
and dictatorship
and fail.
also between 1918-1921 there was civil war, Reds v. Whites

So, themes of Russian history we could use?
-Liking pretty, decadent, colorful, rich things
-Combining those things with simple, common things and the result isnt always positive
-Periods of prosperity followed by periods of disaster
-using color to represent two sides of a fight
-Poor v. Rich

Snippets

Hey, I just started doing some monologue-ish stuff. I'm not that attached to it, but I figure ya gotta start somewhere:

Baba Yaga: I do not like to air my dirty laundry.

I would have made a good aristocrat. Perhaps I did.

Dutchess of Deliverance? (chuckles) Maybe.

No, I do not like my business known by those who do not need it. Which is everyone.
And I do not care for gossip, though my gate chatters away like an uncouth laundress and my post and pans are among the nosiest of people. Or were.

Your brother, he would have made a good frying pan.

But he also would have made a good knish.

(girl starts to cry)

It woul dnot have happened if your whore of a mother had seen that he was not ready and put him back in to finish cooking! An impolite, disgusting child! When i find him again I will rebake him myself!



------

Baba Yaga:

Is that so? Well, tell me then child, what is the difference between lying and pretending? One is meant to deceive and one is not?

One is spoken, one lies un-uttered?

One is a game? Both are a game!

Is one true?

How do you tell the difference?
No! It's all true, it's all pretend, now stop your lying or i'll give your tongue to my cats.

This is mine

So I emailed this, but just to have everything in one place I'll put 'er here.

Scene: Two young children, a young boy and girl run to Baba Yaga, who is tending a garden outside of the chicken house. She treats them warmly, like grandchildren, and ushers them into the house. After giving them some treats and reading them a story, she tells them it is time for bed, wherupon the children change into nightgowns and walk towards a large over. Baba Yaga opens the door for them, tucks them in, and kisses them goodnight before closing the oven door.

Scene(s): A young girl and boy venture to Baba Yaga’s house in search of fire a la Vassilissa, but the boy runs away in fear. The girl approaches the house as BY arrives. She is assigned tasks and carries them out over a great length of time until she needs no further instruction. Seamlessly, she herself becomes Baba Yaga in both duty and general appearance.

Scene(s) Continued from above. A dashing young prince comes to save his childhood sweetheart. He confronts BY (he does not recognize his sweetheart hunched over, unkept, in layers of dirty clothing) and tries to demand of her information about the girl. BY, in due form, offers that if the prince can protect her garden from the ravenous crows which eat its fruits, she will tell him where to find the girl. BY gives him three hours to complete this task, and rides away on her mortarmobile. The prince undertakes the building of a large scarecrow. As he is working he meets the three riders, and convinces each to help him with his labor (their personalities are so different that this is no easy task). When he is done he finds a shady tree to lie under and sleeps deeply. As he sleeps, BY returns and is so moved by the scarecrow’s beauty that she falls deeply in love. She approaches the scarecrow, and as she does so comes out of her hunched posture to resemble more closely her true young-maiden self. She kisses the scarecrow on the lips, giving it life. The prince wakes up to see his young sweetheart, now unmistakably beautiful, but realizes what has conspired. He charges forward and destroys the scarecrow, tearing it apart. BY/Vasilissa, in a most unmitigable rage, summons the spirits of her chicken house and levels a curse on the prince. It is uncertain whether or not he is dead, but he has vanished from the scene. Vassilissa is no longer a maiden in appearance, but instead much more feeble and witchly than before.

The Hedgehog and the House

This is kind of rough, but I think you will all get the idea:

There is a small hedgehog. He won’t actually be a hedgehog, he’ll probably be a ball covered in fur or a person or a puppet (probably a ball would make more sense), but for now we’ll just say hedgehog. There is an ensemble of “figures” which work together to form parts of the house, and they are disguised in such a way that is unclear the line between the figures and the actual house structure.

The stage is filled with a large structure of house propped up on chicken legs. There are places of the structure which appear fully formed and look like a full cottage wall, and others which look stripped down and bare…you can only see the interweaving wood pieces which form the basis of the house.

A hedgehog rolls onstage, and rolls directly into one of the chicken legs. It now becomes clear that the legs of the house can move (they are operated in some way by the “figures”), and the hedgehog is kicked sideways into another leg. The legs of the house play soccer with the hedgehog, bouncing him back and forth between them in a manner which seems to mimic a dance. Suddenly one of the legs kicks the hedgehog up towards one of the walls from the house, and hands reach out from inside the walls to grab it. The hedgehog continues to get tossed around between the walls and legs of the house for a few more beats until a Baba Yaga enters from above, swooping down and snatching the hedgehog from the house, and throws it into the stove.

rymes and conversations

1. creepy little poems
1a. Rosie went into the wood
Hair was hidden with a hood
Baba Yaga saw her there
Ate her up with out a care
1b. Thomas fell into the well
Down to where the monsters dwell
Baba Yaga fished him up
Then cooked him in a yellow cup
1c. Annie got a little lost
Tripped across a patch of moss
Baba Yaga snatched her quick
And ate her brains up with a lick
1d. Johnny let his light burn out
Then disappeared with out a shout
Baba Yaga gave him light
With her oven burning bright

2. I wrote a dialog of three b.y. daughters talking about the little boy they are standing around and have orders from momma to cook just before he goes all crazy on their asses and bakes them instead but it would be really long to post here and I cant figure out the jump HTML so I'll email it

June 1st Assignment

I'm posting early, because my access to the internet is only so so.

1.           

            Vasilisa stands on a very worn wood floor, calmly sweeping up little heads into a pile. They are mostly about the size of apples, and rustle against each other like paper or leaves. They start to cry and she tries to leave them but they are invisibly tied to her ankles, and so they follow her. They cry louder and she tries to kick them away then she starts to kick them violently. There is a terrible moment and Vassilisa wakes up in her bed.

            At the moment the light comes up on her there we should immediately be focused on her hands clutching her quilt, clenched tightly over it. A real voice calls for her and though decidedly different, there is something of the crying heads in it. She stands, taking a piece of the quilt (which seemed to be attached to the whole when it lay against it) and wraps it around her shoulders like shawl. Vasilisa goes to her mother.

 

2.

The good news is

In your dream there was no air      crack            and so it implodes blown out by  a thin reed

Lurches you back into that air you know   you will find it between the sheets

in the rag rug rag

in the bread.

In the breath it will take to answer your mother’s call you will find it there too.

The smoke and dust are rotting in the air. Unlatching the door will not clear it out the two fronts will meet

and they will rage.

You’ve never tried but you’re sure. They taught you this in science class.

Better not to stir it up at all.

"Once there was..."

I just thought of another interesting way to think about "Once there was and once there was not."

The setting of one of Brecht's plays is, in his own words, "Chicago which is not Chicago." Never having been to the city himself, he has set his play in the Chicago in his imagination. He wants anyone putting up his play to have that in the forefront of their minds (how Brechtian).

Anyway, so I guess what this brings to mind for me is the question What do we know about Russia, these traditions, this folklore, and how much attention do we want to draw to it's fabrication? Hmmm...

This quote was in the back of one of the copies of Vasilissa the Beautiful I was reading:

"I particularly loved this story because it is a tale peopled by women. From Vasilissa's mother and her deathbed blessing, to the wicked stepmother, to the wily old witch, Baba Yaga, to Vasilissa's adopted mother, even to the little doll--it is women who challenge Vasilissa to grow, who sustain her in her troubles, and who rejoice iwth her in her final triumph."

That was a quote by the author, and then there was another really intersting comment by the illustrator. The illustrator chose to put Vasilissa in a kitchka, which is a cap with horns, which were extremely disliked in Russia after it adopted Christianity because the caps resembled the devil.

Russian Art

I also found this article that has some really nice art in it, and since Rachel was talking about the wood cuts, you guys might be interested in it. If you go to JSTOR and search for this:

• Children's Books by Russian Emigre Artists: 1921-1940

• A. L. de Saint-Rat
• The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 11, Russian/Soviet Theme Issue 2 (Winter, 1989),... more
• Published by: Florida International University Board of Trustees on behalf of The Wolfsonian-FIU

you will find it. plus, it tickles me to read from the journal of decorative and propaganda arts.

Baba Roga, Yaga Jaga, OTher Stuffs

Hey guys!



Lookit! I figured out how to post on this thing! I did some reading today, and I found one article in particular that I found really helpful. It's the second link, though I bet the first one (an article about Russian fairytales by the same woman) will be also interesting.

THe article has a lot of examinations of her in modern fiction which are really interesting, some good stuff about her multiple personalities, and something REALLY WEIRD about how the whole cannabalism thing may be a reference to this Russian practice called REBAKING where they would put sick children in the oven to make them better.

Is everyone writing something? I haven't started yet, but I'm going to! By June 1st! Woop Woop!


http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrrussian.html

http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrBabaYaga.html (THIS ONE)

Other exciting things like quotes

Quotes I liked from various versions:

-"I do not like to expose my dirty washing." BY, praising Vasilisa for not asking questions about the things in her house.

-"Once there was and once there was not." I know we talked about this, but just saying.

-"Tishka, Tishka, bread and meat. Come ashore it's time to eat!" I'm always excited by little song stuff like this in folklore.

Lubok Folk Art:

In Katya Arnold's book, she explains that her illustrations are inspired by this kind of hand colored woodcut. I looked it up and it looks pretty cool. Something to think about design-wise. Here's a link: http://tars.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/Lubok/lubok.html

and here are some that I liked from there:

Baba Yaga Versions I've found

I've been having some trouble finding a variety also, but I recommend asking a librarian (children's librarian if possible) because I've found that a lot of them that are less similar have weird un-yaga names. 

Some noteworthy versions the Children's librarian helped me find: 

-The Black Geese by Jessica Souhami

-Baba Yaga and The Wise Doll by Hiawyn Oran (the child is, think, not gender identified, and named "Too Nice" which is interesting to me)

-Baba Yaga by Katya Arnold (This story focuses on a little boy named Tishka, shortened from Tereshichka, who is apparently present in a lot of Russian stories. This one is worth reading especially for the introduction and the illustrations. 

I'm having trouble coming across different Baba Yaga stories...most of the ones I've found are just different versions of Vasalissa the Beautiful, but I know Audrey said that she appears in multiple different stories? Is anyone else running into this problem?

here we go!

so, I didn't locate the book until 5 minutes before I was leaving Hampshire and therefore did not go to duplications and get important sections scanned for everyone.
sorrysorry

so, because the book seems hard to locate, I would say that you guys should try to read as many actual Baba Yaga stories as possible, there are some online, and think about the following when writing:

-The adult/child relationship: how do they see each other? Who has control over the situation? Who thinks they have control?
-Objects and pets in BY's house often do the opposite of what she does, help or hinder the hero.
-The idea that the hut in the forest is a gateway to the underworld, things work backwards (you can carry water in a thing with holes, you can cook in an upside down pot), how you change when you leave
-The history of BY, where did she come from?
-The stove as an focal point in the house and plots of many stories

I'm flying away to a far off land tomorrow and will be m.i.a. for two weeks but keep posting ideas and things you've read about and don't forget our first writings are due on JUNE FIRST!

sick cloak

Slotslot

We've been slotted for the spring studio!
Weeee!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0820467693?tag=thesurlalufairyt&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=0820467693&creative=373489&camp=211189

thats the book I've been reading

We watched this animation in my gogol/nabokov class today. It's called the Hedgehog in the Fog, and it's by Yuriy Norshteyn. It's really really adorable, and also feel like it had an interesting wonderment aesthetic to it.

Also, I was thinking the other night, and I think another word that had sort of describes our some of things we've discussed is mimicry, and how our tight production team is a mimic of the Baba Yaga ensemble we've been discussing.

Audrey, you should give us all the title of the book you're reading that way we can track it down this summer.

this picture is why I become interested in B.Y. in the first place