Oracle Leaves – Portraits of Daphne

Inspired by balletic traditions of libretto and choreographic storytelling, Oracle Leaves sets out to radically expand the classical mythology of Daphne and Apollo through a series of portraits in motion that rewrite agency, multiplicity, and alternative continuations into this story of transformation. As acts of escape or as punishment for the actions of men and gods, women in classical mythologies are routinely transformed into ‘un-sensual’ natural forms. In the case of Daphne fleeing from the ardent advance of Apollo, her relentlessly pursued body becomes suddenly rooted to the soil as she turns into a Laurel tree, stoic and silent. In Oracle Leaves, Daphne’s life, and transformation to tree, is re-envisioned as a rejection of ownership and an embrace of plurality. Embodied by different performers, these portraits coalesce in ways that attempt to blur boundaries and dislodge patterns of power through the strange intimacies and entanglements that appear between multiple ways of being.