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titovgro · 4 years

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Hi! This is Michael from hopedaemon. I was super curious how you and Amynta settled as a black panther, if you don’t mind my asking!

Hi there Michael, thanks for the question, we are glad to answer! (And are also glad to finally informally meet another dæmian.) But Aramyntas and I settled on the form in the more classical “Pullman Symbolic Approach”. We did a lot of self meditating, introspection, and we took a few looks at the various aspects of my personalities.

I took the more classical approach to the form finding because of my personality which is a lot of “by the books”, kind of personality. Of course not everyone has to do this, but it’s just how I took my approach.

First we looked at a specific side of my being. My more introverted side, which I haven’t necessarily “grown out of”, but more have just been able to navigate away from. It is still there obviously, one can’t just decide to pick up and be an extrovert, but we found that I am very much an Introverted-extrovert, in that I draw and recharge my energy from being alone, but I can still be out and about in a profession (like healthcare as a nurse assistant) where I can openly be around people.

So we took a look at my more introverted side, being that it is a side of myself that I keep to myself for when I’m home and need to recharge, and we realized that we would need a form that is somewhat reclusive.

We also noticed that a big part of my attitudes are very “regal”, much in the same way that I like to be “by the books” in a lot of things, such as my prior example of the Pullman method, but I also like to be by the books in my work while at the hospital, and even in my own mannerisms. Of course I cut loose and have my fun, but my drawback to who I have always been as a person is very much like a by the books kind of person.

So in general I took these two traits of my my fallback personality, being reclusive and regal and realized that these traits were Aramyntas. I also was able to differentiate that the forefront of my personality is very much a social butterfly, and quick to make decisions and an impulsive kind of person, and so I was able to see the lines where I ended and Aramyntas started to begin. We realized that all through my life she was the more passive one urging cation, soothing me when I cried, reminding me of the rules, or even just being my ferocious courage when I needed it the most.

So before I get to how we landed on a Black Panther (melanated Jaguar), I’ll definitely say that we “tried on” a few forms. We realized that these forms were completely separate from a dæmon’s form, and this was somewhat of a hard pill to swallow for myself. But what I had tried to envision as Amy’s form was symbolically different from say, a spirit animal/guide or even a Harry Potter patronus. We went through several forms such as a lioness, a horse, we even sometimes played with the ideas of a swan. But none of these fit, and it all felt wrong and in the end she reminded me stick to the basics of my personality traits, and even to just narrow down (because omg there are just way too many animals out there to choose from), we narrowed down animals from where I would have come from in HDM.

So with reclusiveness, and a regal attitude, we also took a look at my heritage, because I figured that if I were to be in “Lyra’s world” of His Dark Materials, Amynta would most likely take the form of an animal from where I’m from (or in this case my dad is from). My dad is from Central America, and so we took a look at animals that matched my descriptions, and it was funny because Amy’s form was always there staring me in the face!

Short story Segway, but when I was little I had wanted to get a plush from the “Rainforest Café”, which is a restaurant that is in our local mall here in south Florida. Basically it has animatronics and lights and steam and the ambiance of a rainforest but in a dining experience. And I remember that I wanted this one animal plush in particular. And, looking back, there she was! That was Aramyntas the whole time! I didn’t know it, but my dæmon, even when I was young and, even she probably had no idea what for that she’d take, was with me in my room the whole time. My dæmon, a black panther.

The jaguar is native to Central America, and so I figured that because my father is from Central America, and that black panthers are reclusive, as well as them being regraded culturally as noble as well as them being the biggest of the “big cat breeds” in Central America, Aramyntas and I took one look at that plush, did a little research on the difference between Jaguars and the African Leopards. And there you have it, one Black Panther dæmon.

When it comes to Aramyntas’ gender, we felt that almost immediately. We read that in HDM that there was a man that had a same sex dæmon, but that Pullman never explained why this happened. So I tried to make Amy masculine in nature in my head, but she rejected that rather quickly, even as formless as she was early on. We thought about a genderless feel, but she was rather persistent on her gender early on, and when the dæmon knows what they want then they know what they want. Like, she is my soul, but separate from me, and even then has a voice of her own, and boy did she use it to tell me what she wanted.

When it comes to her name, it is Aramyntas in the full form, and short form being Amynta or even Amy if I’m feeling particularly lazy.

Interestingly enough, we found out her name earlier on before we found her form. We both looked at all of the dæmons in HDM, and we did a bit of study on their names, meanings, and etymology. We read that dæmons are named by their human-parents’ dæmons, to which we then had to consider what my parents’ dæmons would have named her.

As we both looked for her name, we “tried on” different sounding names, some even including the feminine version of my own, and we even tried the name of what my parents would have named me if I had been female, “Ana”. We liked Ana for a while, and it stuck maybe for a few months but other it soon wore thin, and she didn’t feel like it was working for us.

So we took to searching again, and we noticed that that there was honestly no consistency between the names of the dæmons in HDM besides that they were very extraordinary in terms that they were uncommon and aren’t heard of all the time in conversation. For example, some names were in completely different languages, and none seemed to solely come from one human’s native country over another. So we kept that in the back of our minds as we searched.

But when it comes to names, there’s honestly no easier way than to go to baby-naming-websites. I had found this out when I was looking up names for some books that I myself am writing, so I perused a few of these that I like personally. These can generate random names for you sometimes, and other times you can search specifically by gender, in different languages, or by country of origin.

So we just looked up girl names in all languages, and lightly browsed from A to Z, seeing which names stuck in our minds and wiring them down as we went. “Amynta” is actually a name in-of-itself, and we tried going with just that for a while, which felt the most comfortable out of all the rest. So we did more research on the name, and we found that there were variations of the same name. We saw the long form - Aramyntas, and it clicked for us. That was her. We held onto Amynta as a nickname of sorts, and then let it devolve into Amy (Ah-mee) as time went on. As for the meaning behind Aramyntas, and why we went with it, it is English in origin, and it means “Defender” just like a Lioness. We looked back in all of our soul searching and we realized that growing up Amy, as much as she was one to warn me to be cautious, to hold my tongue, or to follow the rules; she was also the one to light the fire under my butt when things were unfair or if I needed to be protected in someway or the other.

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londontheatre · 7 years

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Here I am at The Rayne Theatre at Chickenshed, reviewing a preview of ‘A New Musical Rapunzel’. This traditional story has been turned on its head and something a bit different has been created.

In a large attic of a house on the outskirts of London, Hazel (played by Cerys Lambert) along with six children fall asleep reading fairy tales. Suddenly they are in Hazel’s wonderful and frightening dream, where she is Rapunzel. She is locked in a tower in the magical woods and is desperate to be freed. The six children search high and low for her. But the task of finding her proves difficult as Gothel (the witch) makes the tower disappear and reappear somewhere else in the woods. A simple rusty brown leafy curtain hides the tower on the stage. A prince is absent in this play, instead there is a young woodsman called Henry.

The magical woods is filled with interesting creatures, like the underground gnomes, sleeping fairies, spiders and more. The gnomes are simply dressed with their red hats and pinky red wellington boots. The spiders wear black jeans and red belts. Nothing glitzy or special about any of the costumes but they are adequately suitable for the magical woods. There is quite a bit of dancing to some lovely music and great catchy drum beats, no recognisable songs though, however very pleasant.

This production has an extremely large cast, around 800 people! I do believe that there is a rotating cast for most of the roles, but even so, it is a big cast. The cast is made up of young people, ages ranging from very young children to young adults, all with varying skills and physical abilities.

With an extremely large cast, there is lots happening on the stage at any one time, making it a bit challenging to follow. King Philip (Michael Bossisse), Queen Aramynta (Sarah Connolly), Gothel – the witch (Gemilla Shamruk), Henry (Philip Rothery) and Rapunzel (Cerys Lambert) are the main singers in this play and their voices supported the roles they played in this musical. And with this in mind, one is forgiving for the few notes that were sang off key or the words that were forgotten when sung by other cast members.

I was a bit blown away with the Sign Language Interpreters (Loren Jacobs and Belinda McGuirk) and the energy that they brought with them. The signing is incorporated into the play rather than being the standard sign language ‘add on’. This was truly theatrical signing at its best – it put a smile on my face.

With that said, this is certainly an inclusive theatre allowing young people an important and very valuable opportunity to come together from diverse backgrounds and produce theatre. There is a great sense of satisfaction when you consider what has been achieved with the challenges such as a large young diverse cast.

If there was one piece of advice I was to give, it would be to watch this play with an open mind and not expect the traditional Rapunzel story.

Review by Shaidi Ramsurrun

Rapunzel, as you’ve never seen her before! Chickenshed is delighted to present a new and exciting musical version of the well-loved fairy tale, Rapunzel this Christmas. Mysterious, romantic and life-affirming, this will be a dramatic re-telling of a story you thought you knew! Rapunzel has little memory of her life before the tower, but yearns to be free. The woods that surround the tower are full of fantastic and astounding creatures – and while Rapunzel’s famous long hair may give her incredible abilities, she learns that her true strength comes from within. Strength which she may need sooner than she thinks, as some unexpected strangers are about to arrive unannounced…! Featuring Chickenshed’s famously large and amazingly diverse cast, this magical, musical and mysterious version of Rapunzel will dazzle and delight children and adults alike.

Review is from a preview performance.

RAPUNZEL A New Musical Rayne Theatre, Chickenshed Theatre Chase Side, Southgate, London N14 4PE Wednesday 22 November – Saturday 6 January 2018 http://ift.tt/2fn7EDI

http://ift.tt/2zSwF5h London Theatre 1

#IFTTT #London Theatre 1

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