#soluna has a gender?

[solunamare]

a lot of my friends really need to hear this. i know im genderfluid but what the hell man

*grabs your hands and speaks to you in a tone that is so gentle* they/them pronouns stop being universal once you learn a person's pronouns. Sometimes that person's pronouns will include they/them and in that specific case you are allowed to keep using those pronouns for that person. In any case where you learn a persons pronouns and that person doesn't use they/them, you should no longer use those pronouns for that person. If you continue to use they/them pronouns knowing that person doesn't use them, you are now misgendering that person. Kindly stop doing that please. Thank you, I love you.

[spyridonya]

Soluna is largely uncomfortable around elves, which isn't that uncommon with half elves that grow up in elven communities despite her unique circumstances. Her father is a drow and her mother is a half wood elf, making her a quarter human, though the only advantage she has from other half elves is likely an advanced life span. Because of her heritage, Soluna looks like a full Drow by most non elves, while other elves see the human as much as a drow - willingly choosing to ignore she's also part Wood Elf. Until she meets a full blooded Llothsworn Drow, who absolutely sees the human and wood elf and wants to puke.

At 108 years old, she looks like and acts like her early 20s, however Soluna can't trance and explore memories of past lives. Some elves, mostly Sun High Elves, will see her as a perfectly good waste of an elven soul, though Soluna isn't sure if she's got an elven soul due to her father swearing off Lloth and her mother worshipping a human deity.

On top of this, her village is trying to separate the eons of the cultural misnandry and gender absolution that Lloth demanded of her followers. No one knows how to act like surface elves and switching back to old ways is tempting but due to fear of Lloth and Corellon, they're in this limbo of trying to make it work.

Becoming a bard was for Soluna's sanity after her mother's death.

[karenbraun325]

This Could Be Our Final Chance so, We’ll make it Beautiful

Its officially October 13, 2017 which makes it officially opening day of Main Stage Heathers 101. Today marks my last opening night. After six years and over 25 productions today marks the beginning of the end for my time at SoLuna Studio.  While I will be staying with SoLuna for as long as the doors stay open, this is my last show as director/choreographer. Pippin was suppose to be my final show, but when we got approved for the rights for Heathers 101, I took it as a sign to stay on for one more show. I get to close out these next few weeks surrounded by people and artists who have meant the world to me,  and to me there is no better conclusion than that. 

A lot of people have been asking me “Is it really the last show?” “What will you do now?” Will you come back?”  So to answer all those questions my answers are as follows. Yes, this is really my last show. I have no plans to do any other main stage or teen productions. However, I would love to teach some intensives and workshops over the next several months since I love teaching. As far as my plans for the future only time will tell. I plan to apply for fellowships and director/choreographer positions that will hopefully bring my back to New York City on more professional, original and creative projects. Where will end up? I have no clue, none of us do. So let me take this time to put the future aside for a moment and talk about the past and ultimately the present. 

These last six years have been the most stressful, chaotic, amazing, and artistic times of my life. I have literally had every emotion possible on this journey and if you’ve been with me on this ride you know its time for me to say goodbye. However, I wouldn’t change a single moment of it. Megan and I opened SoLuna and I was 23 years old... 23... no one should have let me think I could run a theater at 23 but if you know one thing about me its that I’m stubborn as hell.  I thought owning my own business would be a breeze and that all I’d do is create a bunch of art and live a rich and stress free life. I now look back and laugh at 23 year old Karen, she was far off the mark on almost everything. I’ve made a zillion mistakes but among the mistakes and burned bridges I found myself along the way. I stand here six years later and I have never felt more certain in who I am, and what I want for myself.  I can't take back the things I’ve done but I can learn from them.  Its taken me six years and many hard looks in the mirror to be where I am now.  So now, I put the mistakes behind me and i look at the positives, and there are so many positives. I have worked with some of the most amazing and creative artists Long Island has to offer. I got to live and breathe theater for six years and take pieces of musical theater that I love and make them fresh and innovative. I’ve worked with  teens and adults who trusted my process and together we made beautiful art that will forever stay with me. It is thanks to every single person who worked with me that I’m the director/choreographer I am today. There are no words than can ever express that type of gratitude. Every person I’ve worked with has made an imprint on me on a personal and creative level.  I’ve been lucky enough to have sent so many students off to college, watched them graduate and start to book jobs.  The students who once were my kids, and now some of my truest friends because we grew together. My heart is full of so much love and thanks.

I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned throughout my time is how to work as a team. My first few shows, I needed to feel like Super-Woman and do everything myself. I truly thought that only I could things the best way possible.  I was so far off, my best work has been with the collaboration of others.  Thank you to Dan, Nick, Haley and Greg who always brought out the best artist in me. Thank you for teaching me what it meant to truly collaborate with someone and making some of my favorite projects along side of me. Its because of you that I have the confidence that I do and that I can to work with and train brilliant creative young minds like Serena who worked with me on Heathers. Thank you to Danny for literally being the best musical director a girl could ask for, for sticking by me through tough times, and for taking so many crazy leaps with me. Thank you to my amazing dance captains who have remembered my work better than I have over the years. A special dance captain shout out has to go to Alyssa, my dance captain MVP who has been with me since day one. We made it girlie, I don't know how but we did and I love you. 

Thank you to my mom, who has been my  biggest lifeline and best friend through the years. She taught me what it meant to be a strong woman and business owner. Im eternally grateful that she believed in Megan and I when we were so young and helped make our dreams a reality. Thank you for dealing with me, all the chaos and drama, because there was enough to last a lifetime. Thank you doesn't seem like a big enough statement, but thank you for making our dreams come true. Love you mama.

My biggest thank you goes to my work-wife Megan who I drive insane on a regular basis, but I’m pretty sure she loves me anyway because thats what marriage is. Thank you for seeing this through with me, for being my partner, and for loving and supporting me through our most difficult times.  I’d like to think that we made our teenage selves proud at all we accomplished. We dreamed big, maybe too big but we did it and we did it damn well. I could go on  and on with a laundry list of thank you and love but it still wouldn’t be everything I want to say. So I’ll just say thank you for holding my hand and looking into my eyes and telling me I could do it when I thought I couldn't. You are the best friend, business partner, and work-wife I could have asked for. I love you and your stuck with me till death do us part (sorry).

So Heathers is it for me, this is the end of the chapter. While its sad and I know i’ll be a wreck on closing, I’m going out on my terms and going out on top. I’ve done pretty much every show I’ve wanted to, I’m with an amazing group of artists and friends, and I’ve seen all my original kids off to college; the timing couldn't be more perfect. Plus, my main stage Heathers cast has members both new and old, some of whom have been with me since the beginning and they are all beyond stellar and of Broadway caliber.  If this is how I go out, then I did it right. Its been one hell of ride but I plan to cherish these next three weeks and try to drag it out as much as possible. Its my hope that everyone comes back to see Heathers from now till Oct 29, I’d love to be surrounded by nothing but pure love during my final few weeks.  The biggest of thanks to my main stage Heathers cast who made this process a dream for me. I’ve collaborated on so much of this show with you and we all created a show that we could be so insanely proud of. Thank you for making this an epic ending for me. 

So I suppose this is one long letter of thanks and love... but mostly COME SEE HEATHERS since its officially the last time you’ll see a Karen Braun original at SoLuna! I promise it’ll be one of the most amazing things you’ll see this year.  

Oh, and if you read this far I guess I can also promise you that we’ll have one final concert in December where we can all cry together. The concert will be: “The Sky’s the Limit Concert” where it’ll be a gender swap/miscast concert and I’ll have more details to come in the next few weeks!!! <3 

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: A Performance Celebrating Female Defiance Goes Off Course

Scene from ‘Traveling Lady’ by Jessica Mitrani, performed by Rossy de Palma (all photos by Sylvia Elzafon, courtesy SOLUNA)

DALLAS — In 1889, the journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, better known by her pseudonym, Nellie Bly, embarked on an unprecedented voyage: a trip around the world meant to span just 72 days. She had pitched the idea to her editor at the New York World, wanting to beat the fictional record set by Phileas Fogg, the protagonist of Jules Verne’s 1873 Around the World in 80 Days. The paper’s business manager initially said he preferred to send a man — Bly would have too much stuff to carry alone, he argued — but Bly fought him, won her trip, and then published a book detailing her adventures.

Scene from ‘Traveling Lady’ by Jessica Mitrani, performed by Rossy de Palma

This famous exchange serves as the point of departure for Traveling Lady, an ambitious performance by Colombian-born artist Jessica Mitrani that celebrates female defiance while taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to examine the societal expectations of women today. Mitrani has presented Traveling Lady multiple times since 2014, and this most recent showing occurred earlier this month as part of the Dallas’ Symphony Orchestra-led SOLUNA Arts Festival, a week-long event of performances by local and international groups.

A mixture of a film of black-and-white animations interspersed with live, on-stage appearances by actress Rossy de Palma, its narrative form is intriguing, even refreshing. But it seemed at times too unanchored to Traveling Lady‘s message, with scenes and transitions sometimes so abstract and dotty they simply left me with a furrowed brow.

Mitrani recounts Bly’s tale during the first five minutes of the 45-minute-long performance, which is simply illustrated by black-and-white, animated collages, filled with checkered patterns inspired by Bly’s coat. From then on, Traveling Lady divides into chapters that explore the ways women navigate between different identities society has imposed upon them. The animations present de Palma in a kitchen, in an asylum — nodding to the historical ties between women and hysteria — and, in another scene, she is holding a tub of cold cream — to signify women as objects of desire, needing to continuously appear youthful. Quips abound about a woman’s place in the world and current gender dynamics, sometimes boomed by a narrator in the film and sometimes played over a speaker and lip-synced by de Palma, who appears sporadically on stage against an animated backdrop. One that garnered strong laughter from the audience: “Why is it, that when a man travels, he has luggage, but when a woman travels, it’s baggage?” But other lines seemed too far-out or simply too esoteric, such as de Palma’s recitation of a passage from Gertrude Stein’s Ida: A Novel, which Mitrani intended as a meditation on how women can travel through language.

Scene from ‘Traveling Lady’ by Jessica Mitrani, performed by Rossy de Palma

Scene from ‘Traveling Lady’ by Jessica Mitrani, performed by Rossy de Palma

It’s perhaps because Mitrani drew from so many different sources that Traveling Lady feels so fragmented and ultimately perplexing. Stein is one of 72 artistic sources she drew upon (one for each day of Bly’s travels); others include Louis Bourgeois and Josef Hoffman, whose architecture inspired some of the film’s animated settings.

What helps, somewhat, to deliver the performance’s girl-power message are a few recurring props that serve as echoes of Bly’s journey. Bly packed light, carrying in a small bag some clothes, slippers, and a jar of the aforementioned cold cream. This bag, a copy of which de Palma totes from time to time, becomes a flagrant metaphor for the emotional burdens women bear from societal pressures; the cold cream, a symbol, of course, of commercialized beauty standards. It comes to life in one memorable scene to complain about how stressful it is to be a cold cream, with a “mission to defy aging.” Fashion collective ThreeAsFour also designed three different versions of a Victorian dress, each voluminous and extravagant in their own way, to make visible the physical constrictions of period clothing. One even becomes a character, waltzing on stage as an eight-foot-tall dress that dancer Jordan Morley commanders. 

Ultimately, it’s the characters of Traveling Lady that maintain the performance’s delight, from the anthropomorphized objects to its star, de Palma, whose dramatic facial expressions are simply captivating. The animations, unfortunately, as creative as they are, are clumsy translations of Mitrani’s ideas about women’s boundaries and freedoms. The performance seemed to want to encourage women to travel through life beyond gender, but it largely ended up dwelling on common gender stereotypes, offering little to inspire.

Scene from ‘Traveling Lady’ by Jessica Mitrani, performed by Rossy de Palma

Scene from ‘Traveling Lady’ by Jessica Mitrani, performed by Rossy de Palma

Scene from ‘Traveling Lady’ by Jessica Mitrani, performed by Rossy de Palma

Scene from ‘Traveling Lady’ by Jessica Mitrani, performed by Rossy de Palma

Traveling Lady took place at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center (2301 Flora Street, Dallas, Texas) on June 1.

Editor’s note: The author’s travel and lodgings were paid for by SOLUNA.

The post A Performance Celebrating Female Defiance Goes Off Course appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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