Mary Stuart (1987) "is a tragedy about power between two women in an extremely important moment in history [...] It's about the potentiality of Mary Stuart's power, disabled [condenada] by her sentimentalism and passion, confronted by a Queen Elizabeth [who is] objective, and has tremendous physical strength. [Mere] potentiality of power is always destructive. It's a metaphor for the Latin American situation: our future, part free, part imprisoned by political motives. We are violated, fecundated by the First World, seduced...." (Denise Stoklos, Interview with María Teresa Alvarado, 1991, translation Leslie Damasceno)  Image 1  |  Image 2  |  Image 3  |  Image 4  |  Image 5

Casa (1990), The “Actor” in Casa performs contraction, antithesis, the push-pull between thought and motion,
intention and its realization.  The most basic tasks of living—drinking juice or making herself comfortable—seem almost impossibly complicated as the woman recites the development of Homo Erectus while struggling ferociously for composure. As she tries desperately to control her environment, the audience laughs at Stoklos’ exquisite performance of the inexplicable confusion of human existence. Image 1  |  Image 2  |  Image 3  |  Image 4

Fax to Columbus (1992), "Denise Stoklos stages a direct confrontation with history. As part of the 500th year anniversary of the 'discovery' of the Americas, Stoklos' Fax outlines the devastating consequences of colonization. The work is one long rant about historical truth. Perhaps the most discursive of Stoklos's plays in the sense that its text is a discourse directly delivered to Columbus (and his inheritors in exploitation), Fax gives voice to a counter-reading of the celebration of the discovery of the Americas."  Leslie Damasceno, from 'The Gestural Art of Recaliming Utopia.'

In Des-Medeia (1994), "a piece that uses the myth of Medea as a metaphor for the Brazilian soul, the chorus, as Denise Stoklos interprets it, ends its prefatory speech by calling on Medea to "dis-medeafy" herself, to transform the myth, to remedy it (remendéia, a play on the word Medea), to take the reins of the sun-chariot in a flight glorified by the "effusive victory of love." The chorus signifies a communal utopian process: "Even if this is called utopia for us utopia in truth rhymes well with transformation now, already and every day." Leslie Damasceno, from "The Gestural Art of Reclaiming Utopia."  Image 1

Civil Disobedience (1997): Morning is When I Am Awake and There is an Aurora in Me (1997) "based on texts by Henry David Thoreau as written, directed and performed by Denise Stoklos, explores the possibilities of freedom—--political, individual, sexual, artistic--—in a society that keeps people needy and confined. Then, in —Thoreau’'s 19th century New England, —and now, in the throes of rampant capitalism at the end of the 20th century, this performance shows people weighed down, cramped, tormented, even driven to the point of madness by society'’s imperative for compliance.”"
Diana Taylor, “The Politics of Indecipherability: Denise Stoklos’ ‘Civil Disobedience.’” TDR, Spring, 2000.

Calendar of Stone (2002)

Comment on this page