COLLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR - transfiguration - is an electronic opera that meets in soliloquy and the dazzling. The work features soundscapes, movement, poetry, and ritual sparked out of necessity for self preservation if to aid in the perseverance of the collective. Snapshots and micro-takes of time in quarantine brought intelligences rooted in blackness, trans-queer identity, running, neurodiversity, and time magic. The change of pace labored in witness to: the thinning of the massed veil, devotion to nostalgic intimacies, and the ageless suppression of universal truths. The protagonist spells a dark interior to vibrant hyper euphoric inner workings - arranging moments into many revolutions.
director: Stephanie Acosta
image: Jessie Young
image: video stills + Daniel Diaz
TURQUOISE
text: Angie Pittman
let’s go to the edge
and go all the way
deep slices of earth
are softer than i think
red lasers unraveling
into the wall of rain
surrender
if you choose
there was nothing
there was nothing but turquoise
if nothing else there was…
turquoise
i. RAINDROPS
i’ll count the raindrops
until i tell me to stop
and forget and start again
and start again
counting
birds and squirrels gather on the fire escape outside of my window
seems like an important meeting
trees gesture in the sweaty breeze and if i am lucky enough a kind ladybug will visit me along the edge
butterflies in their progress, cluster and take flight
the ants, the crickets, the bees, the spiders, are all in survival conversations…
all past my reach…
it’s the only movement i witness..
my own has slowed to a fixed pivot, scanning empty black and silver rooftops
to soothe the hum before the buzz
the boxy piece of view available to me is frightening
- - i make lists
a weighted paper struggles in touches of blue
secured to my walls with neon green tape because that is my favorite color,
and in this moment it implies life
i record the number of times i’ve cried
the unbroken days whisper me to my waters
violent tears, wetter and more bleak
than all my past rhythms
all my seasons
all my attempts
all my sadnesses
all my un-chosens
all my existences
i’ve howled for eternities in a day
- - i make lists.
my brain finds it useful to perform emotion notation body scores
an acknowledgement of my physicality and form - my altered state and shape
blues collide and the ritual lift begins::
from the wooden floor, blurred eyes rise staggered under a romanticized iteration being - confusion roars mega with questions sealed in imagination caverns lodged beneath my inharmonic material turned reverse from its source frame to shattered un-whole reconfigurations like spheres above the glow:
they assemble in mourning bodies next to the picture gripping
all my desires
all my knowings
all my expressions of continuance…
all past my reach…
and one day…i stopped…
ii. DIGITAL TOUCH
my trauma arranged like spider webs in a barely hidden corner
interior surface angles kiss collisions by hands of my custody while
hints dropped like pleasure crumbs fused to my burning sacrum
maze their way back to the erotic.
3 years and counting
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 months…
since i’ve been touched
i’ve touched..
we’ve touched…
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10….
and one day…i stopped
counting
extend the range of your sensory magnifying glass
i want your want poured out on my naked page
i want…
your gaze on every inch of my form when i bloom
sustain your curiosity with simple gestures that unravel new body mosaics
before the magic contorts and curls dormant to a shapeless hush.
hush
i am the long wooden table awaiting the feast.
come hungry.
i want exchange…
i want honest
i want power
i want play
i want…
my truth speaks mysteries
my facts wake weird
my confession finds you yearning in your own anatomy…
hush… i want deep green
hush… i want cold spine
i want…. i want flesh and bone
all past my reach…
and one day…i stopped…
iii. THE TOWER
constant longing
systemization realities of unseen options
challenger to the dark spark
glow from the strip of stardust inside the tear
agitation chase labyrinth
realm of yielding fields
summon ancient tense
unhooked body verse braided secret extermination headlines
and yet…
the chosen trust / an idea / a dream
atop the dark waters
farewellers of the faith meld optimistic assumptions
masts will outlive my musculature
the rations of rationalization
will be adequate..
and yet..
an ocean that i crosswalk in multiples
understood in this sentencing
syntax crushed in remarkable will be’s
observational tower
climb down
from purposeful heights
if i am to save a dream
if i am to inhabit a life
if i am to beacon
if i am to exist
to human
to love
to love
if i am
if i am
love
if
love
if i am
pause - a thrilling and cataclysmic momentary pulse of existence
the wave has passed
i climb back up
up and up
to the heights
just out of reach
the i am
i am
love
i am to be
the light
the glitter
the immaculate
the dazzling
the trigger
the untouched
the intact
the maybe
the idea
the dream
and yet…
