Léda Davies
Léda Davies
Circus has the ability to provocatively push political messaging, and when the virtuosity of circus is placed within a theatrical framework it activates our thinking processes in new ways by rending the interdisciplinary experience both spell-casting and strange.
— Paraphrased from: Bouissac, Paul. Circus as Multimodal Discourse.Bloomsbury Academic, London; New York, 2012
Photo: Jim Mneymeh
Current Projects —
Photo: Jim Mneymeh
PERSEPHONE BOUND
“Short, sharp shock of a show . . . elegantly directed . . . has an unexpected beauty and grace.”
— Jim Burke, The Montreal Gazette
Persephone Bound follows a young woman’s journey through three vivid realms: The Underworld — a college party that holds the painful memory of her experience of sexual assault; The Court — a bureaucratic hell-sphere where she pursues her fight for justice; and The River (Styx) — a liminal internal space where she grapples with grief, the ambiguity of memory, and the trauma of an event that has left an indelible mark on her life.
Persephone Bound, a contemporary adaptation of the Greek Myth of Persephone, is a play that uses stunning poetry, percussion, and aerial circus work to tell the story of a young woman's courage and pain as she navigates the complexities of speaking out about surviving sexual assault.
Nominated for FIVE Montreal English Theatre Awards, Winner: Outstanding Lighting Design (Martin Sirois) & Outstanding Contribution to Theatre (Aerial Circus Team).
Created and Performed by: Léda Davies and Jed Tomlinson, with additional text creation by Michaela Jeffery
Director: Micheline Chevrier
Set and Costume Design: Diana Uribe
Movement direction: Lucie Vigneault
Aerial Puller: Eric Nyland
Additional support from:
Rachel Walker, Aerial Circus Coach
Emma Tibaldo, Playwrights Workshop Montreal, Dramaturge
Manuel Acevedo Civantos, Aerial Rigger
Produced by The Screaming Goats Collective
55 min, followed by a curated talk back
Persephone Bound’s script was developed with Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal
Videography & editing by Andrew Andreoli.
I offer you my absence.
My silence.
My stillness.
The darkness of our night.
—Fish at the Bottom of the Sea, Schafenacker
Watch Léda’s thesis talk on the subject of virtuosity and aerial performance.
Photo: Jim Mneymeh
FISH AT THE BOTTOM
OF THE SEA
Fish at the Bottom of the Sea, written by Nicole Schafenacker, tells the story of Eve, a young woman who has lost her lover in a car accident. Through the use of an aerial bungee apparatus and a unique poetic text, Fish at the Bottom of the Sea hinges on the tension of Eve’s desire to cross an impossible threshold to her lost love while exploring the transformative process of grief.
Performed by: Léda Davies
Text: Nicole Schafenacker
Director: Lizz Hobbs
Movement Direction: Léda Davies
Additional Support From
Lin Snelling, Mentor
Produced with support from The Screaming Goats Collective
Photo: Jim Mneymeh
Whether on stage at the National Arts Centre, a site-specific performance in a freight elevator, or hanging off of a 5-story building, Léda tenaciously blends the virtuosity of circus and storytelling in everything she does.
