The Grape
With opening night of Forbidden Fruit approaching, we’ve revealed many of the minds behind the multiple narratives living within the show. Here’s the last of our 8 fruits: The Grape.
Performer Claire Aldridge, who worked with choreographer Amy Leona Havin to bring this piece into being, invites us into the generative process behind this character’s uniquely movement-based story…
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In 8 words, how would you describe the world of this room?
CA: Yearning. Desperate. Resilient. Hopeful. Phototropic. Fermenting. Stained. Aching.
Did you pick your fruit? What drew you to it?
CA: I did not actually, when Sam and I met up in September (which feels an eternity ago now) I was immediately drawn to the project as a whole. Throughout our conversation I found myself pulled more towards themes and modalities of performance, rather than a specific fruit. I knew I wanted to live in the realm of dance theater. It was Sam who came to me with the Grape and visions of Dionysus. I didn’t feel as connected to the grape until I started digging into the more scientific research surrounding grapes. Did you know that grapes actually thrive in poor soil? The less nutrient dense and harsher the climate, the sweeter the grape. And the fermentation process of wine? That metaphor of struggling and reaching for light, only to die and be reborn as a whole new vice? Now there was a feminine story I could explore.
Where did you begin with building a story? Has your concept transformed over time?
CA: That is part of what excites me so much with experimental dance theater - I’ve researched and found an arc for our dear sweet Grape, and share her experience predominantly through gesture and expressive movement. It's a much different structure than a monologue - and leaves much more room for a voyeur to imbue the movement with their own story. I began with heartbreak, and my own personal habit of making these dark animalistic characters who live in this suffering- but this structure of cyclical repetition demands something else. So I have been working on finding the levity; heartbreak is dark and so painful, but her courage to continue to love, to choose to fall over and over while constantly reaching for pleasure, that is what I have discovered along the way.
Are there texts, tales, or real-world events that have inspired your work on this piece?
CA: Oh yeah. I mean, once I felt I had a grasp on the real world life of a grape I could lean into some of the stories I saw her in. Okay, ready for your Grape reading list?
De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Women by Chloe Caldwell
I was also deeply influenced by music so here’s a playlist for you:
“Pleasure to the Beautiful Body is Pain to the Beautiful Soul” - Oscar Wilde
- Amorphous Absorption by Perila
- YAN by LI YILEI
- Dropped Soul by Murcof
- Echolalia by Faetooth
- Yesterday, 2095 by desert sand feels warm at night
- Valentine, Texas by Mitski
- M by Florist
- Where Did You Sleep Last Night by Sleigh Bells
- Nami by Meitei
- Ptolemaea by Ethel Cain
- I Dont Wanna Be Here by Like A Villain
- Darkness Forever by Soccer Mommy
- Undone by Zsela
And of course devised work is directly influenced by the lens through which you view the world. So a lot of this comes from my own experiences of love in a queer femme body.
As we begin physically devising and rehearsing, what are you curious about exploring?
CA: Oh god. If you're going to make me narrow it down - I am very curious in working alongside the cyclical and repetitive demands of the piece. How can I make this 8 minutes stand alone - yes - stay alive with each cycle - yes - but how can I also allow space for myself, the room, and the performance’s inevitable change over the course of an evening? Or the whole run? How do I make space for her solitude to be affected by the voices of 8 other rooms leaking through the walls?
Without revealing too much, what design elements are you excited for in this room?
CA: Chairs. Secrets. Chalk. The past and present in parallel play.
The Grape's room is the only room with a choreographer. How did that come about?
CA: Once we knew we wanted to tell this story through movement - Sam paired Amy and myself together - as she had with writers and actors. Sam has an amazing eye for ensemble curation, so naturally Amy and I found throughout the process that we have deeply similar ways of approaching work and our aesthetic styles have a natural sort of conversation happening between them. When we were in the room together the work just flowed.
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Forbidden Fruit runs March 4th - April 1st. Book your tickets here.
~Kai