Scene one

SCENE: The red tent of a fortuneteller

The red tent of a fortune teller appears “without warning or fanfare”. What seems to be a fortuneteller is seated at a table, cards, a globe – but wait, it is a snow globe!

A Boy (Later we will be introduced to him as William Dugan.  See his story in the footnote.[1]) shifts from foot to foot, looking at the fortune teller. 

Finally she takes his hand.  This is echoed by duets of the same movements by rest of ensemble.  Dances of handtaking, receiving, giving.  What does it mean to take a stranger’s hand? What can we read in that gesture?  There is something so ridiculously hopeful about believing that a stranger could tell you the truth about the future, while all the time so closely aware to how much we are being scammed by this.  After the dance/as the dance/ the following short exchange between the boy and the fortuneteller.

FORTUNETELLER: She lives.

(BOY): But how will I find her?

FORTUNETELLER: The elephant will lead you to her.

(BOY): But there is not a single elephant in sight!

FORTUNETELLER: (It is as if these words irritate the Fortuneteller.  She packs up her stuff, the tent becomes her giant coat.  She increases in size) If you haven’t already noticed, things are often not what they seem.   

(The fortuneteller disappears, as do all the double duets.  Perhaps as a reverse of the Mother in the Nutcracker, all the dancers get enveloped in her giant skirt/ which was once the tent of a fortuneteller)

Shadows of elephant feet go marching by.  The (boy) watches.  “Workers” with long poles begin to turn the round platform.  Throughout the piece we will see the labor of how things unfold.  As in certain kinds of puppetry, where the puppeters are dressed in black, but still visible, as the action is manipulated by them.

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[1] William Dugan (“Dugie”) was born at the turn of the century in Moultrie, GA.  At the age of 12 he ran away “to join the circus”.  Not an uncommon pursuit at the time.  He joined the Sparks circus and was put to work with the elephants.  He dreamed of one day having his own circus.  Something terrible happened with the Sparks Circus in Erwin, TN involving an elephant named Big Mary.  Dugie returned to Moultrie and saved to put his own circus together.  He purchased the “Pan American Animal Exhibit” – which included a recently acquisition of a baby elephant named Nancy.  Nancy and Dugie were inseperable – people tell of seeing the elephant and Dugie on their daily walks in downtown Moultrie, GA.  Before Dugie could launch his circus he took sick and was hospitalized.  Nancy would walk to the hospital everyday and stand outside his window.  When Dugie succumbed to his illness and died, Nancy slipped into a deep depression and soon passed as well.  Dugie’s family  wanted a fitting memorial for their circus-wandering uncle.  They sold the Pan American Animal Exhibit, and with the money commissioned a statue of Nancy, made of Georgia marble, to mark Dugie’s grave.  You can see this 5 foot by 7 foot statue at the Primitive Baptist Cemetry in Moultrie to this day.  It is said to be the only elephant marker anywhere in the world.