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.