“There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds, clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, when down her weedy trophies and herself, fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide and mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up; which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, as one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and endued unto that element. But long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.” From Hamlet by William Shakespeare

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we only hear about Ophelia’s death. I wanted to show it. The dancer Julia Tevheen wore a long, tattered gown, with the forest symbolized by way of her cavorting with a twelve foot-long, thick garland of flowers and vines. The tree that she climbs was represented by the dancer Michael de Leon, dressed in black, as a “kuroko” stage assistant in Kabuki theater manner. Ophelia climbs the tree – the limb breaks, and the “tree” deposits her into the lake, here the poetically lit stage floor. As she is pulled down by the weight of her water clogged garment, she simply extends her bent legs flat, and becomes one with the watery grave.

Choreography by John Kelly; Music by Arvo Part; Costume by James Reilly. Produced by the McKnight Foundation as part of the SOLO series. Performed at the Southern Theatre, MN, 2006. Created for and performed by dancer Julia Tevheen.