Almazan as La Loba
SHE WOLVES: WOMEN IN SEX, DEATH AND REBIRTH (solo play and ensemble version)
Is a multimedia performance piece, which challenges traditional concepts of womanhood by exploring the often-disturbing social realities women around the world have faced throughout history. From a wise, mythical wolf-woman and an 18th Century girl on the verge of marriage… and starvation, to a celebrity reporter analyzing the hidden symbolisms of Julia Roberts’ “Pretty Woman” and a virgin stripper who shouts back at catcalling men, SHE WOLVES features a pack of female characters as varied and contradictory as women themselves. Is there a hidden link between them? Blending text, movement, music and video art, writer/performer Raquel Almazán weaves a surreal narrative, which offers a humorous, extreme and finally, moving take on the untamed side women are so rarely allowed to unleash.
Through the show Almazan, not only shares her personal journey as a woman but gives voice to the lost women of history. She Wolves also echoes the lost female voices of today, the voices of marginalized women in prisons and the sex industry, who shared their stories and perspectives with Almazan during her research for writing this piece.
“Like women of this world, wolves are being killed, skinned and hung up to dry under a Florissant sun. Women’s lives are ended so that they can use our skin. They tried to trap me with metal cages, I chewed my paw off and it grew back again into a hand holding a shotgun to my face.” —-La Loba
La Loba
She Wolves Presentations
* P. S. 122 Avant-Garde Arama- Virgin Stripper monologue, NYC
* Excerpts for Sexplosion at Galapagos: variety of female performance artist, NYC
*Rikers Prison: Warrior excerpt for female teenagers, empowerment event, NYC
* New York International Fringe Fest: Revised New Version, Full length run at Gene Frankel NYC
* Excerpt Bowery Poetry Club-Monologue Slam and Nuyorican Poets Café, NYC
* Lower East Side Festival- Virgin Stripper excerpt: Theatre for the New City, NYC
* Vangeline Theatre Cabaret: Virgin Stripper excerpt: Bowery Poetry Club, NYC
* Virgin Stripper excerpt: #metoo National Action Network Convention (2018)
* Virgin Stripper excerpt: #metoo The Gray Area: An interpretation (2018)
* Virgin Stripper excerpt: #metoo #HealMeToo Festival, IRT NYC (2019)
* P.S. 742, Artemis- Full-length run, Miami
* Powers Studio Slam –Excerpts, Miami
* Virgin Stripper Excerpt Wild Seduction Gallery- voices of sex workers, Miami
* C.E.O excerpt Peace Protest Against the War, Miami
* Excerpts Art Basel-World’s Largest Art Fair, Miami
*Artist Development Residency for She Wolves in Art South Florida Homestead Center
* Homestead and Broward Correctional Facilities, workshop. South Florida
* Alternate Roots Conference: Weaving the Threads of Connection
*Convergence of Artists, Educators and Organizers. Revolutionary Theatre Workshop.
*Saint Thomas University’s Women’s Fair with Women for Human Rights 1st and 2nd annual conference.
* The National Women’s Studies Conference at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee
* Los Angeles Scope Conference
* FAWE- Florida Association for Women in Education Conference
Ancient One
MORE TEXT EXCERPTS OF SHE WOLVES
(Alpha Faints and revives back to her letter.)
Etta, Grandmother told me virgins are always in white dresses above the knee. As young women always sit with their legs tightly crossed. Can you believe Etta, Mother thinks I should invest in a tapeworm, all the cousins have done it, the worms would just absorb all this necessary fat in the stomach. I only hope though that I don’t end up dead like Susan who got eaten alive by her tape worm.
—-The Corseted One
Good Morning, chair, Mr. President. Perhaps there’s no need to remind you that this is my 75th appearance at this congressional session. I am requesting once again, 50 million dollars in aid to rescue the robot sex dolls that are being constructed in Caracas Venezuela. We have already raised 12 million towards this goal. These young girls are being inducted into this organization that breaks their legs at the age of 10, inserts metal rods for elongation of the legs.
—-The Activist
What…what…did you say Lucy. Oh, my God she looks so fat, I mean how could they put her on television. Uhhhh. Hold on. Danny I’m gonna kick your behind. No , I am not on my period, smartass. Hasn’t school started yet? I think Marcy is running a sex hotline out of her house. (Alpha picks up other telephone.) Hello, yes, baby, I’m wet and ready. I’m all yours for 3 dollars a minute.
—-The Housewife
Ttthhhannnkkkyoouuuu foorrrr cooommmingggg! Thank you for coming Hahaaaahaaa, Yeah, thank you for coming. But Growth is the key to revenues. That’s right I love you. And the recent growth of my breast is everything, look at them, look at these bombs aren’t they big? (Laughs.) Yes they are. They will support this company. Our industrial production, has peaked, yes I know you are concerned about the decrease this summer to 2.2 percent.
—- C.hief.E.xecutive.O.fficer
Women play many roles in economics, and the power of pedestal whorism entertainment revenues in our country are astronomical. Being that her film Pretty Woman is the greatest commercial for prostitution to date. As a consensus we all know this is- bullshit. Do we really believe that most Hollywood Strip whores end up with Richard Gere or with heroin needles stuck to their arm in the back of a dumpster?
—-The Reporter
Even as a virgin, I still felt like a whore, the hidden want to be stripper, the hidden mistress? In dissstreeess. Hidden. Secret. That’s the way porn works. My fascination with bloody strippers. “What the fuck did you just say, I’m fuckin’ walkin’ here, man, I will never let them win. In essence to FUCK. Because there’s gotta be a more eloquent way of saying fuck you.
—-The Virgin Stripper
Virgin Stripper