“She did not expect to meet any beast…”

 

A response to the fact that Golding's book about stranded schoolboys becoming savage is still a mainstay in education and culture. Flies explores what would happen if the story occurred now (instead of the 1950s), and the island was populated by female-identifying characters of diverse backgrounds and ages. The things that divide and define women in society— motherhood, economic circumstance, race, career, genetics, relationships  — would be rendered meaningless or gone.  How would it be different? 

 

What if women were all just only themselves again: alone and together? Would it be possible to assert power and structure without violence? 

 

This piece was performed at the Wylie Theatre in Dallas, at the AT&T Centre for the Performing Arts in October 2024.

It was commissioned by and developed with Bombshell Dance Project, working with their company of dancers to tell this story through movement and text.