The Princess and the Shepherd is a series of corporeal mime pieces, choreographed by father of the genre Etienne Decroux. The two characters dance side by side but separate, engaged in their own personal stories. With the plucking and handing over of a flower, the two characters meet for an instant, two stories converging for a single moment, before the process begins again.
The Princess The Shepherd
the daughter of the king, went pacing
through the
and the child of nobody fields looking for
his sheep
left her New York city kingdom lost some
decades ago
for a while he was
sleeping
a
Middle eastern wonderland sleep he didn’t
choose.
where the He
musicians play outside, dreamed of kings,
where the forests sing at night of ancient stones
where the people cry into walls and of words branded in
flame
the children words as
much
bring gas masks for him as for his
father
to school. and when he awoke
his hair
I met her in a room where was singed (like the
heat of his
bread was baking will had cooked
his knotted chest
grey)
and her softness and he rose to his
bubbled up in the yeast, so feet, his strong
hands smoking,
I swam past her mote and his congregation
dispersed to
found her room of paintings some far off
meadow.
So he
of eye drops wandered from
bloom to bloom
of old woolen hats. distracted,
untouched for
years
I slept in her room every and petals lined in
glass cut his
day for a month palms so deep a
full
while she burgundy wine bled
out,
laid back on her down so he blessed it,
comforter throne raised his hands to
drink, and his
her first love on the telephone leather-bound arms
cried out to Gd.
with her sunglasses on to But in his field
stood another
flower,
hide her royal weepy eyes thorns worn thin,
hued so
and a crown of tangled hair, brilliant and sad
that he,
brown as the leaves on the ground, seeing royalty
approaching,
soft as the light caught chose it from the
brush
through smoke in kissed its petals
the window. Out in the field to hesitantly, gently
see the seasons change a and handed
Shepherd handed her the Princess
a Rose
and for an instant, the three hung suspended,
her hands soft and painted, his perfumed
sharing a rose red as kingship, as remorse.
So the Rose went back with the Princess, where her kind and
graceful hands brought it to her people
and it shone its colors bright and moved the peasants to tears with its promise
But as the people gathered to hear its petals sing, the Rose bloomed richly
thinking of the hands of its Shepherd
out looking for his congregation, ready to build a kingdom of his own.
Feb 12, 2012
Feb 12, 2012 at 6:27 PM UTC
The Princess and the Shepherd is a series of corporeal mime pieces, choreographed by father of the genre Etienne Decroux. The two characters dance side by side but separate, engaged in their own personal stories. With the plucking and handing over of a flower, the two characters meet for an instant, two stories converging for a single moment, before the process begins again.
The Princess The Shepherd
the daughter of the king, went pacing
through the
and the child of nobody fields looking for
his sheep
left her New York city kingdom lost some
decades ago
for a while he was
sleeping
a
Middle eastern wonderland sleep he didn’t
choose.
where the He
musicians play outside, dreamed of kings,
where the forests sing at night of ancient stones
where the people cry into walls and of words branded in
flame
the children words as
much
bring gas masks for him as for his
father
to school. and when he awoke
his hair
I met her in a room where was singed (like the
heat of his
bread was baking will had cooked
his knotted chest
grey)
and her softness and he rose to his
bubbled up in the yeast, so feet, his strong
hands smoking,
I swam past her mote and his congregation
dispersed to
found her room of paintings some far off
meadow.
So he
of eye drops wandered from
bloom to bloom
of old woolen hats. distracted,
untouched for
years
I slept in her room every and petals lined in
glass cut his
day for a month palms so deep a
full
while she burgundy wine bled
out,
laid back on her down so he blessed it,
comforter throne raised his hands to
drink, and his
her first love on the telephone leather-bound arms
cried out to Gd.
with her sunglasses on to But in his field
stood another
flower,
hide her royal weepy eyes thorns worn thin,
hued so
and a crown of tangled hair, brilliant and sad
that he,
brown as the leaves on the ground, seeing royalty
approaching,
soft as the light caught chose it from the
brush
through smoke in kissed its petals
the window. Out in the field to hesitantly, gently
see the seasons change a and handed
Shepherd handed her the Princess
a Rose
and for an instant, the three hung suspended,
her hands soft and painted, his perfumed
sharing a rose red as kingship, as remorse.
So the Rose went back with the Princess, where her kind and
graceful hands brought it to her people
and it shone its colors bright and moved the peasants to tears with its promise
But as the people gathered to hear its petals sing, the Rose bloomed richly
thinking of the hands of its Shepherd
out looking for his congregation, ready to build a kingdom of his own.
