Trevor Martin and Kym Olsen collaboration, 2001
This 60 minute performance responds to multiple systems of passion at work in the middle ages and how those ideas are interpreted physically, intellectually - what are their legacy, their resonance? Taking Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais as points of departure - as personae to feed the creative investigation - we examine a language of spirituality, sexuality, and gender slippage. The body is primary. Narrative slips in and out of completion. The process is based on research and personal response to what is found. It is a montage of images, physical phrases, textual framings, and always the body shifting, filtering what is seen and heard.
Through the development of “Ecstasy,” ten phrases have come to attention; they serve, in some respect, as the defining terms for this work. They are as follows:
- a dark angel
- the thrown voice
- family portrait
- melody, fire speak
- devouring war
- a dark angel dance
- will I miss you if you go?
- contained arm
- crotch lift
- drowning, the erotic dream
“It is an in-flight movie, Agnes of God, starring Jane Fonda, Meg Tilly, and Anne Bancroft -- no, it's Agnes of God starring Henry Fonda, Herb Albert, and Lindsay Wagner, or better yet, it's Agnes of God starring Henry Winkler, Kym Olsen, and Bella Lagosi. The scene is the one in which Bella playing Agnes under hypnosis flies against the back wall of the upstairs room of the abbey. He/she is crying, her hands clenched out at her sides, blood pouring from her palms... No, wait, keep only the image of the in-flight movie.”