MOLLY&NOLA

This evening-length work grew out of research that began in 2021 while in residence at New Dance Alliance. Early in our process Molly revealed stories of her religious upbringing, and specifically a brief dalliance she had with the Pentecostal Church. Together we mined this personal history for imagery, and through our exploration uncanny parallels between church, cattle, and divine kink revealed themselves. Early phases of this work reckoned with these realms of violence and exaltation. Subsequent research led us to an image of the wound in Christ’s side, found in the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg. Encountering this image and the story of disciples sucking Christ’s wound prompted conversations around profanity, voyeurism, and the erotic. Inspired by this narrative, we play into themes of consent, materiality, and objectification as we devour each other. Flesh and object converge in a celestial wasteland.