Emily Dickinson: Zero at the Bone

by Nanette Perrotte

Performance Synopsis

Emily Dickinson – Zero at the Bone, celebrates the power and joy of this great American poet. In her work we see an artist who made a deliberate choice to pursue her craft and genius. Emily Dickinson – Zero at the Bone illuminates Dickinson’s poetry for audiences of all ages. By telling the story of her life and singing her poems re-arranged as pop and jazz songs the audience hears Dickinson's genius in a new way.

With Emily Dickinson – Zero at the Bone, we see a Dickinson who is not the myth of the solitary recluse, possibly bi-polar and obsessed with death, no…we see a fully empowered poet who chooses her life and her art. She works at her craft without recognition, without fame or fortune. This is one of the great lessons of our Dickinson show, to say as in the words of the song “Given”, do you have Gold to own – in solid Bars?  We ask if you have the will to pursue your calling without heed to fame or fortune. Will you use the “gold’ within to be bold?

Required curriculum. As one of the greatest poets in the English language, a female American poet, Dickinson will always be part of the required curriculum. Along with the language skills taught by studying her poetry, there is also the tumultuous history of her times: America 1850 to 1880. This period that will witness the rise of the women’s suffragette movement, transcendentalism, Marx and Darwin – the Romantics – and the cultural earthquake of the American Civil War. Whitman will write his Leaves of Grass, while Dickinson writes her life’s work. During the live show narrations tell this history as storytelling between songs.
Photos: Ashley A. Beliveau
Information Links about Emily Dickinson:

www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org
www.emilydickinson.org
www.emilydickinsoninternationalsociety.org
www.bartleby.com/113