What Poetry / Whose Poetry

Geomancy is a multimedia piece that combines dance, lyric poetry and visual projections. Although it does not follow a narrative, there are seven distinct characters. The character of Elizabeth is emerging as an energetic history-loving traveler whose attraction to World War I battle sites has summoned her to Flanders.

She is met by — or maybe she summons — six ghosts of soldiers and local women who join in her poetic exploration of the land and its landscapes of war.

The women’s presence brings with it a separate kind of poetic language, that is, dance that is inspired by the lyric poems about the space they inhabited and still haunt.

And the soldiers — Higgins, Fletcher, and Wood — challenge the audience to find the poetry in primary documents from the period — military manuals and reports form the field.

One result of our collaboration are powerful moments created when dancers act, and actors dance. All week our actors have been working with several of AGA‘s movement scores, just as AGA has engaged in textual character analysis. This crossover of artistic practices — all inspired by the piece’s poetic text — has marked our process, and so will undoubtedly mark this developing production.

“Except the ground was wrong” Poet Elizabeth T. Gray on visiting Flanders

Geomancy: Geography by Divination began with a poem cycle by Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.  Much of Gray’s poetry is fueled by her research into the many geographical / cartographic, and biographic histories of World War I. Here is a journal excerpt from Gray’s most recent trip to Flanders, where she notes:

It was raining a little, still, and I passed a farmhouse covered in flowers, a small fenced field with glossy cows and a few horses. I picked some blackberries. The woods were sparse and the sound of the rain on the leaves above and underfoot was a lovely change from airports and New York City. Like a walk in summer rain, in New England.

Except the ground was wrong, I could tell. Right away.