THE WOODS

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noc-turne

noun

:a work of art dealing with evening or night

Welcome to noc-turne

For the sake of performers and the audience experience:

No food or beverage allowed in the theatre.
Use the restroom before the show starts. It will not be possible to access the restroom during the show.
Do not move into the performance space.
Do not touch the performers.
Please, no filming or photography.
Please silence your cellphone.

Thank You! Enjoy the Show!

Director's Notes

Greyce Skinner

In 6th grade, I was in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." The play follows the author's dramatization of the Salem witch trials of 1692, a panic that, even at the time, was recognized to have spun wildly out of control. By the time it was over, 19 people had been executed for witchcraft or related crimes. In 6th grade, I was just excited to hang out with the older kids and scream my guts out on stage. However; as events often do when you're young, I felt some outsized connection to the story and it held space in my brain long after the last curtain had fallen.

This October, I visited Salem for the first time with my husband. The trees of the surrounding woods were changing and looking out across the bay, I couldn't help marvel at how beautiful it was. I had expected a much gloomier landscape, a much harsher climate, a forest that lurked and cast shadows, an environment that felt like the panic that unfolded in 1692. That isn't what I found. Like any other story I've been told, the real place was not at all like I'd imagined. Salem, it turns out, is beautiful sometimes. The more we walked around, the more houses we looked at, the more we saw, the more real Salem became.

I was reminded, once again, that the woods were only ever the woods, the witches were only ever people, and those that perpetrated the panic and punishment were their neighbors.

The stories we are told greatly influence our perceptions. As a child I was frightened of the dark woods at night- I feared witches, zombies, and spectral demons that plotted my kidnapping and murder when I went to pee. However, having arrived at the midpoint of my 30's without any witch attacks, I am forced to reevaluate my fear.

In WILD shows, I seek to reevaluate and retell stories from a new perspective, a feminine perspective. I feel the woods deserve this same character rehabilitation.

I have found immense solace, satisfaction, and perspective in the woods. They have no expectations for you. The woods are ancient ecosystems that make it possible for life to flourish. Their soils grow trees, trees which produce the oxygen we need to breathe. They are the home for countless animals that live, reproduce, and die there. Your attention is required in the woods because, of course, there are threats. These threats are the reality of the living world on our naked human skin; things like temperature, weather, and the animals that call these environments home. But this attention brings me into the present and reminds me of my place in this world. I'm a strange, self aware animal that has the ability to watch, to observe the movement of planets, seasons, and life cycles and make some sense of it all- to experiment and tell stories and show others "Look at what I saw!"

Nothing in the woods has ever frightened me as much as things I have seen in the human world. In the aftermath of an election that devastated my sense of safety, justice, and hope I have wanted to retreat to the woods, both real and imagined. This show has reminded me that the woods are always there for perspective, centering, and restoration- but they only offer a temporary salve. The salve is even more lasting if you can meet others there to dance, rage, restore each other and then return to a world that needs renewed strength, courage, and supportive communities.

That is what I hope this show offers you because that's what it's given me.

Welcome to THE WOODS.

Poet's Notes

Kyra Scrimgeour

The vast majority of the text for noc-turne: THE WOODS was written in a cemetery. That cemetery, just over an hour north of Salem, Massachusetts, has no witches in it. It is home to the wolf tree and the ancient oak that you’ll hear of during the show, to the empty tombs of famous men, to Ruth Stetson, whose headstone design serves as the logo for the cemetery, but whose story is lost to history.

Perhaps Ruth, in life, would slip away from her home to escape into the woods, would stumble upon women just like her—wanderers, looking for a place to set down, briefly, the weight of their lives and dance on the bones of the world’s expectations. It is easy to imagine Ruth meeting us in the same clearing in the woods where noc-turne was born—a place without time, dripping with shadows and teeming with possibility.

The inaugural year of noc-turne, when the first of us gathered in the woods, we were there to explore movement as a response to grief and isolation, as a place to channel feminine anger, and as a conduit for the ritual acknowledgement of the power of community. It was 2021 and we were still reeling from the famed “unprecedented times”.

When we decided to return to the woods this year, perhaps we had grown numb to the unprecedented. We weren’t sure, in early 2024, what we were looking for in the forest. Why were we going? What kind of woods were they at all–were the monsters in the village or in the trees?

As we worked to answer those questions, we built a noc-turne across thousands of miles, in different kinds of forests. The trees here this year are both the hardy ___ of the Mountain West, and ocean-kissed, moss-blanketed sentinels of the Northeast. We build a noc-turne where the cast, old faces and new, might help us explore what kind of story we were telling.

And then the election, and the answers to our questions. Answers, perhaps, we should have seen all along. The woods were only ever the woods, much like the witches in Salem were only ever women. So let us take your hands, wanderer. Together, we will light ritual fires, we will feel the cosmic shifting of the earth under our feet, dance to the raging beat of our hearts, and most importantly, remind ourselves that these things are what miracles look like. Together, we will scramble to the tops of the canopies to scream our rage, our hopes, our dreams of the future into the darkness. Together, we will take the stardust into our lungs and learn how to walk it back into the waking world.

Welcome, wanderer, to the woods.

Performer's Notes

Wren Glick

My Darling Wanderer,

I want more than anything to write you a farewell letter made up of light and love, but that is not where I am at. When I was invited to join the production of The Woods I thought about my process of becoming. Of building myself and my community piece by piece, often in spite of the society around me. I thought of my anger at the way things are, and my anguish at the loss of the way things could have been. And then the election.

In a lot of ways the next four years will mirror tonight's performances. Many of us will need to leave the “safety” of the village to find ourselves-our community, our strength, our power, our rage- in the woods. I can’t say for certain what we will encounter, what we will have to endure, in the coming years. What I can say is this: you don’t have to do it alone, you don’t have to just lie down and take it. Find your coven. Support your community. Get angry and do something about it.

Thank you for being here, for rooting yourself into the ground with us and wandering into the woods.

"Dancing was barely tolerated, if at all, so they danced in the forest where no one could see them..."

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Women Who Run With the Wolves

Show

RUN OF SHOW
in order of appearance

Wild Woman — Kyra Scrimgeour
"Wind" / "The Pines" — Greyce Skinner
"i Tokuni" — Katie Butler

"In The Garden" — Mirise

"Burn Your Village" — Marina Snow

"Shiller"— Judy

"Swan Upon Leda" — Summer Ort

"A Little Wicked" — Kaila Bayes
"Fos" — Whore T. Culture
"Product of My Own Design" — Wren Glick

"The Witching Hour" - Cast

"Dream Girl Evil" - Greyce Skinner

PRODUCTION

Producer, Director - Greyce Skinner

Poetry - Kyra Scrimgeour
Stage Manager, Production Support - Stefanie Chow
Sound Operation - Mike Thompson

Story

The edge of the forest.

The WILD WOMAN emerges from the trees to offer a greeting, instructions, and an invitation to enter THE WOODS.

"Wind" & "The Pines

A lone wanderer enters the clearing. She has been here before. She's come to see ancient oak that lives there and climb into it's branches. Placing her hands on the trees bark she listens with her whole body. The wind sweeps through the clearing and lifts her. After stripping her restrictive clothing, she climbs the tree, and welcomes others to join her.

One by one they arrive.

"i Tokuni"

This piece follows a woman who decides to face her fears and finally go into the woods. She feels called there, but is terrified at the same time. She is pulled to a grove where rituals take place and allows herself to be transformed. She sheds her old ways and what she thought kept her safe, but was really holding her back, and becomes a part of the woods and of the creatures that gather there.

"In The Garden"

I grew up in the woods. They were where I first experimented with witchiness and creativity as a child and where I still retreat as an adult to come back to myself. My piece is meant to embody dark feminine/animalistic shape-shifting energy slowly awakening and coming alive in the woods.

"Burn Your Village"

The character is a witch sneaking into the woods in the middle of the night to experience freedom to be herself. She is grounding herself in the woods and coming into her own power, even casting a spell, summoning a lightning and thunder storm.

"Shiller"

My piece was conceptualized around the experience of lightning and rolling thunder.

"Swan Upon Leda"

Swan upon Leda is, on the surface, a whimsical and beautiful song that generally reminds me of the feeling I get while in the woods. Its music feels bigger than me. The lyrics, however, center around women’s right to choose and our constant battle against domestic violence.
My character starts her journey excited about the world and is quickly introduced to her antagonist: a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. Through the help of her new found sisterhood, she finds the strength to drag herself back into safety.
Back into the woods.

"Fos"

If you allow yourself to freeze, you can't will yourself to thaw. A corpse in the process of reanimation had to receive help from somewhere, even if they are unable to see the source. It may feel empowering trying to get through the darkest, frozen woods alone; but the real strength lies in accepting an outstretched hand.
This piece is a deeply personal exploration about finding safety in my body again after an incredibly damaging time in my life. Finding kinship with the wonderful people in the dance, pole, and aerial space who are also working through their own traumas through movement.

"Product of My Own Design"

This piece, at its heart, is about finding a space to build one's personal sense of identity and power, in order to return to society as one's authentic self. For me, this journey was marked by a profound connection to anger. A force I came to view not as inherently negative but as a powerful catalyst for transformation instead. This character embodies the experience of reclaiming oneself and standing firmly in one’s power, even in a world determined to diminish and hollow them out. It is a call to action, a call to anger, a call for change, and an invitation for all who are in the process of becoming.

"Dream Girl Evil"

A response to the fascination with and expectation of control over women, their lives, and their bodies.

The wanderers join together to return back to the village.

Cast

BIOGRAPHIES
in order of appearance

KYRA SCRIMGEOUR

Wild Woman & Poet

This is my fourth year as a part of noc-turne and my third year as the narrator. I received my B.A. in poetry from the University of Colorado Denver, but I have been telling stories since before I could write. While I have tried on many forms of movement over the years, I always return to dance because it allows me to move within story.

"Love! we cried, interpreting the wind / rage! we screamed, significance! we shrieked / until our nest trembled...and the wild owl flew to a different woodland / shedding us as she went."

- Sandra M Gilbert, "In the Forest of Symbols"

GREYCE SKINNER

Producer & Director

"Wind" Emmit Fenn

"The Pines" Roses & Revolutions

"Dream Girl Evil" Florence + The Machine

I'm an actor, aerialist, movement teacher, and producer with over 20 years of focused performing arts experience. I started producing noc-turne to merge my theatre background and love of aerial.

"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."

-Frank Lloyd Wright

KATIE BUTLER

"i Tokuni" Eivor

Katie has choreographed and performed in a wide variety of dance shows and styles, everything from modern to ballroom to sling. She resides in Denver, CO and is a connoisseur of all things spooky and witchy.

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."

- John Muir

MIRISE

"In The Garden" Two People

As a lifelong artist and dancer, movement and self-expression have been central to my wellbeing for as long as I can remember. I began pole dancing 2.5 years ago, a journey that has opened doorways to the self I never imagined possible.

“The doors to the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door… If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life… that is a door.”

- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

MARINA SNOW

"Burn Your Village" Kiki Rockwell

I have been dancing my whole life, doing ballet and jazz when I was younger and starting burlesque about 3 years ago. I love merging the art of burlesque and contemporary dance movement to explore my relationship with my body, build confidence, and tell stories in an unconventional way.

"The world needs strong women. Women who will lift and build others, who will love and be loved, women who live bravely, both tender and fierce, women of indomitable will."

-Amy Tenney

JUDY

"Shiller" Ratatat

Judy spent her entire childhood dancing and performing and is excited to return to a collaborative experience in creating. She will be joining the noc-turne crew with a pole piece inspired by rolling thunder and lightning storms.

"Not all who wander are lost."

-J.R.R. Tolkien

SUMMER ORT

"Swan Upon Leda" Hozier

After a lifetime of dancing, I was introduced to the wonderful world of aerial two years ago and (after a brief period of getting over how much it hurt) fell in love with all of the new physical and mental challenges that it brought. This piece is intended to portray the concept of having something taken from you, and the journey of reclaiming what was lost through growth and community. It is a particularly vulnerable piece for me, and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to share it with all of you.

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

-Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

WHORE T. CULTURE

"Fos" Amanati

Whore T. Culture has been a creative their entire life, but it wasn’t until recently that they became comfortable performing art with their body instead of on paper. They stumbled into the world of pole dancing in December 2022, and it was instantly clear there was no way forward without it.

"You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

- Mary Oliver "Wild Geese"

WREN GLICK

"Product of My Own Design" Artio

Kyra-Old-Orchard-Beach-Halloween-Carnival-Ruby-Jean-Photography-13 - Kyra Scrimgeour.jpg

"Art is not just for oneself, not just the marker of one's own understanding. It is also a map for those who follow after us."

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Women Who Run With the Wolves

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