SEXTRILOGY – A PLAY CYCLE ON PORNOGRAPHY
PORNING THE PLANET: The Desensitization of a Nation – 1st installment of a sextrilogy. Butoh dance meets narrative text – A multi-media solo
A star is porn. Porn star that is.
As NASA chooses her for the making of the film Porning the Planet, Sensora attempts to answer multiple personality disorder through the building of a porn persona. On her way to meet Hugh Hiefner, our savior Sensora’s journey follows her from glam porn star to snuff assassinated President; to finally as a refugee in outer space, launching into the galaxy. Sensora’s metamorphosis challenges our notion of how pornography has altered our method of communicating and connecting with each other and ourselves. All multi-media in the show reflect images we download from her mind. Her provocative memories, her violent fantasies and her daily rituals are witnessed and downloaded for mass absorption into the collective consciousness.
Downloadable TOURING PDF PRESS KIT here-porning-the-planet-tour-kit
Full video available upon request
Additional media galleries 1HERE 2HERE 3HERE
Creative Team:
Raquel Almazan – Writer/Performer/Director
Penny Arcade – Development
Vangeline – Choreography
Charlotte Brathwaite – Additional Direction
Sandra Powers – Multi-media
Jeffrey Michael- Sindy Butz- Costume
Brittany Andrews – Adult Start Consultant
Dixon Place production: associate produced by Halle Morse, Nancy Kim and Monet Hurst Mendoza.
Almazan as Sensora
Solo show Writer/Performer
*Pangea World Theatre Minneapolis. Assistant directed by Charlotte Brathwaite. National Performance Network Touring Engagement 2015. Q & A with audiences, including a panel with sex workers who exchanged in dialogue with the themes of the production.
*Excerpts (Bug Spin Brooklyn) *Full length production (Dixon Place 2016, Dramaturgy by Penny Arcade) *Excerpt performance (Theatre 80)
Text excerpt: SENSORA (SOUTHERN ACCENT)
“Well, hell that means I helped America generate 10 billion dollars this year. How’s that for a stimulus package? Or a stimulus for your package. The technology companies approve touchscreens, faster downloads and interface capabilities all based on millions of porn consumers. Major technical service providers,cable networks and the mafia are seeing most of that money. Don’t you want a cut? Why not let me raise money for the American people.
(She appeals to her voters.)
Porn can help build roads, factories, increase education in low income neighborhoods, finally give health insurance to Americans across the board. Porn will create jobs, ensure that your food is not poisonous, provide social services to the mentally sick- which is all of us, so that we can all stop living on prescription drugs. These revenues will help revitalize the economy, so that we are not crushed under international competition. America no longer produces any products, we outsource our livelihood. We are a service industry country, we consume what other countries mass produce. But we have and will continue to mass produce billions of dollars worth of porn, export it and strap on that cash dildo!”
SEVENTEEN DAYS – THE SECOND INSTALLMENT OF A SEXTRILOGY
An Adaptation of Faust: Loosely based on the biography of pioneer porn star Georgina Spelvin of (Devil in Miss Jones). This new play traces the history of pornography through the lives of legendary grandmother porn Star Spelvin and seventeen yr old grand daughter based on (Sasha Grey) who decides to follow in her foot steps. As Sasha’s entrance into the porn world skyrockets, Star Spelvin challenges her own granddaughter’s intentions and sexual danger in becoming a “Porn Star”. Within 17 Days of her STD test results Sasha begins a fantastical journey living out (The Devil in Miss Jones) Faustian spiral leading to depths she may never escape.
GEORGINA- You’ll be here to hold me during my last breath won’t you?
SASHA- Why worry Grandma, you won’t be dying any time soon.
GEORGINA You’ll be here, won’t you?
SASHA –If you’d like yes, I’ll hold you.
(They hold one another tightly. Sasha lets go.)
GEORGINA- I don’t want my bones around, laying around in the ground or in a tomb.
SASHA- But I’d like to be able to visit you.
(Sasha gently touches Georgina’s face, she traces the wrinkles from her forehead to her neck.)
GEORGINA- Cremate me or something, put whatever is left of me in some container. An urn, brass or gold urn. But don’t burn me the way they burn in hell.
——
CHARLIE -I created the new liberal culture. My leggins helped free the minds of the youth and mis- guided. With no direction home, like a rolling stone they came in droves needing an identity. With macchiatos in their hands and too much John Keats in their heads, they grasped for something tangible to believe in. The flannel wearing nova void losers of the middle class found their home here, where sex, socially conscious work out clothes and 70’s porn iconism could live as one.
3 characters
GODDESSES RETURN TO THE TEMPLE – FINAL INSTALLMENT OF A SEXTRILOGY
Full length- Third part of Almazan’s Sextrilogy. Based on the life of Nina Hartley and Almazan’s experiences in motherhood.
Almazan awarded the June Bingham Live & In Color Commission, 2023. Drafting of the full length play. Directed by Mei Ann Teo starring Jen Ayala and Julia Brothers.
Original short play inception commission in collaboration with NEW YORK MADNESS to write a new short play, all female Latinx writers initiative. The Kraine Theater NYC
Goddesses Return to the Temple. In this dark comedy: The 30,000 BCE Venus of Willendorf statue is embodied by an asexual, single, Latinx/e middle aged pregnant womxn who seeks to know the ancient ways of womxn’s powers when her path to motherhood is endangered. She begins to surprisingly worship The Goddess (a sex positive advocate) at the temple/strip club, the one who’s seen it all, done it all, the wise teacher, a pornographic actress/director, sex educator, unconventional feminist, and author. In a newly forged space, their narratives, identities and renegade path to resurrecting Goddesses intersect multidimensional spaces as they redefine what it means to be “womxn” through a ritualistic journey to liberation.
