Au fer et au feu/By Iron & by Fire

"The Pierrot's Love" on Amazon


Synopsis:
The touching and compelling story of a ghost trying to be heard by a teenage girl who simply thinks she's a nutcase when she starts to hear the voice from the other side. Or would that be another fragment of her shattered soul? When she thinks she gets rid of what was haunting her it's when the ghost presents herself to be part of her own life, a life she had lost a longtime ago, only then she sees she was even more lost than the girl hovering over her mind. A mystery thriller with somewhat paranormal activity on the way, a mixture of Back to the Future and Ghostbuster but located in both Paris and London. A ballerina gets burnt and burst out when she looses her motion during a Ballet presentation in Paris of the late ninteenth century. She eventually dies and starts to haunt a girl from the twenty-first century who apparently has been receiving some eeriie text messages over her cellular phone. There is murder and suspense all over the plot. Apparently her boyfriend is involved. But he's a ghost. She then has to become a ghostwriter literally speaking to solve the case.

"Bloody Shoes"

Screenplay from an adaptation of the mystery/suspense novel "The Pierrot's Love"
by Ana Claudia Antunes

A Dance As One Production

SUPERIMPOSE: "FOUR YEARS EARLIER"

Sc 6 EXT. TRAIN STATION - EVENING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk

The sound of an organ eerily playing "Tocatta" from Bach. A man holding a wallet with labels from many travels gets out of the train. Talita eagerly waits for him. He holds her up, he's happy to see her, but mostly because now he can show her the invitation, proudly.

TALITA
(holding the small piece of paper with the words:
“"Cinématographe" au Salon indien du Grand Café à Paris.
And the address, “14 Boulevard de Cappucines 14”)

Her hands trembling shows in small letters the description of the event, as a regular show, “This instrument invented by Mr Auguste and Louis Lumiere allows one to record, by a series of instantaneous shots, all movements that for some time given occur in front of an objective lens (...) and reproducing those moves projecting them, in grand scale and in large size, in front of a big audience, their images on the screen!

"FOUR YEARS EARLIER"

The sound of an organ softly playing "Tocatta" by Bach.

TALITA
I gave up performing.

GIOVANNI
Don't you tell me it's still about that girl...

TALITA (V.O.)
Those flames burning the theater where she was dancing still insists on haunting me every night. Her wings burning in that fire and yet I became frozen, I couldn't move, I couldn't save my friend.

Images of a ballerina still dancing in the theatre while her costumes burst into flames.

TALITA (V.O.)
(crying)
I heard her screaming...I saw her asking for help, flapping her arms like a bird and disappearing before my eyes, turning into ashes. Some nights the nightmares are so strong and vivid that it's as if Emma is there beside me, looking at me in the middle of the room.

The ballerina now looks relieved with her wings like two spots she becomes transparent and turns into a white light of fire, as she disappears from the scene. A ghost appears touching TALITA's shoulder.

GIOVANNI
That was just a terrible accident.
You shouldn't blame yourself for what happened to her.

TALITA
(touching her shoulders and holding herself in an embrace)
“That was just an awful accident!” That's what they kept telling her too, but I felt horrible, for all she had to go through. She couldn't move her legs and her arms...oh, she couldn't even stretch them the way she used to. I also thought that this could be a second chance for her as well as for me and that I would make better than when I have done. But after all that happened I'm not so secure on my Ballet shoes anymore...

EMMA (V.O.)
Tata, Tata, heart of gold,
your story has to be told!

A noise like a tapping on the wood like someone knocking the windowpane, “Ra-ta-ta-rat-a-ta!”

TALITA
Now seriously, who's that??
It's not funny!! I cannot take this anymore.

The spectrum of Emma's soul hovering over her, caressing TALITA's hair and whispering to her ears as it seems that she cannot see her friend from the other side.

EMMA
Don't be afraid, death is not the end.
Listen, Tata, I'm here to help you!

The Pierrot's Love-A Play In a Play

THE PIERROT'S LOVE
Screenplay by
Ana Claudia Antunes

Based upon the homonymous novel
© 2010 Dancing As One Productions

“Your soul is as a moonlit landscape fair,
Peopled with maskers delicate and dim,
That play on lutes and dance and have an air
Of being sad in their fantastic trim.

Then while they celebrate in minor strain
Triumphant love, effective enterprise,
They have an air of knowing all is vain,—
And through the quiet moonlight their songs rise,

The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone,
That makes to dream the birds upon the tree,
And in their polished basins of white stone .
The fountains tall to sob with ecstasy.“
Paul Verlaine.

BLACK SCREEN

SUPER: A Dance As One Production

OVER BLACK

A continuous furious sound of frantic fingers typing over a computer's keyboard.

FADE IN

Sc 1 INT KITCHEN DAY Sc 1

A long-haired blond woman on her middle forties is seated on a wooden chair in front of the kitchen table typing on her netbook. On the screen we can see she's been searching over the net, browsing on Google the words, "All is Vanity":

ANNE'S MOTHER
Shoot! That's already taken.

CUT TO

The woman is now with her hands over her head, mumbling with her voluminous hair covering half of the computer screen.

ANNE'S MOTHER
Ah! All is Love...it's all about love.
It has always been about love. Love, Love, Love!!

In the screen the words "THE PIERROT'S LOVE" appear like a magic trick, dancing over the keyboard, or rather trembling, and reaching out to the screen as if superimposed into another image, the words give place then to a black and white scene.

OVER BLACK

A continuous sound of frantic fingers typing over a computer's keyboard. Each word appearing on the scene one by one:
CHAPTER I: A PLAY INSIDE A PLAY

SUPERIMPOSE: "PARIS 1899"

Sc 2 EXT. STREETS OF PARIS - NIGHT Sc 2

Dark, slippery sidewalks, wet streets. Seen through a ghostly appearance in a window's shop a shadow of a man approaching. A gas street lamp lightens up the ambiance where we can read the names of the two streets the man had just crossed, "Magnolias" and "Camelias". The man gets out of the shop with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. He heads to the Vaudeville Theatre that's just across the street from the flower shop. But before he arrives to the theatre he enters into a Cafe instead. He looks up and reads the name of the coffee shop.

ANDREW
Cafe au Fleur, bien sur!

Sc 3 INT. CAFE - NIGHT Sc 3

ANDREW enters the small room leaving behind him a wet footprint mixed with the mud that had splashed over his shoes. His hat and coat drips water inside the coffee place as well. The owner looks at him with a grumpy face. Andrew sits in a chair and asks a waitress for a coffee, Andrew continues to drink his coffee frantically from the small cup, taking small sips with less than a second on each interval. He takes out his hat and puts it over the table, brushing the top with his fingers, without paying attention to the woman on the table beside him.

WOMAN
Oh, that' so rude!

The woman takes her bag up and points it to complain to the man that he had spilled water on her purse. Andrew finishes his coffee, taking a last sip from the white cup and sets the artifact made of Chinese porcelain over the small saucer. He then pours some coins over the table. He looks at the door and observes people walking on the street. He watches the clock every five seconds, like a nervous tic, he gets carried out with an anxiety that keeps growing as a hungry animal. He leaves the coffee house. He looks the place from the outdoor. We can see the sign in the tent over the cafe written in rococo words “Cafe Au Fleur”. He takes a deep breath in and smells the flowers and takes one of the roses from the bouquet that he nervously grab with too much more intensity than it seems necessary and puts the flower inside the front pocket from his coat.

Sc 4 INT. THEATRE - NIGHT Sc 4

“Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven is playing. The man opens the heavy door made of thick wood and enters the old building. There in the dressing room lies another flower on a canape. The man looks pale when he watches a young woman changing her clothes through the mirror. He remembers their first conversation, her voice comes to his mind like a whisper dressed in small gusts of wind.

THERESE (V.O.)
My love...

The voice gets stronger as he keeps reminding of old scenes.

THERESE
(distressed)
The world of actors...
She will not be part of it!

ANDREW
What if she wants to be an actress? What if?

THERESE (V.O.)
I don't think girls should worry about this.
Besides...I HAVE HIGH HOPES FOR HER.

Sounds of a train wagon rolling through its trails over the hard friction made of steel gets mixed with her strong statement as her voice increases in size and shape.

A pale apparition of a ghostly image reveals a woman seated in the canape, searching for a cigarette and crossing her legs as she tries to light it up.

THERESE
God forbid she will have to suffer like I did.
I grieve just by thinking about it-
(looking at an empty space over the wall separating ANDREW from the young woman getting dressed on the other room)
And hopefully she will find a nice decent man to look after her.

ANDREW lost in his own reverie and frozen in icy introspection, keeps still, looking back at her with glassy eyes.

Sc 5 INT. DRESSING ROOM - NIGHT Sc 5

A young lady with no more than her thirties, but looking much younger, shakes her hands in a frenzy motion, waving at him from behind the curtain, without showing her face.

TALITA
Alo, Andrew!

ANDREW
(Still talking to a phantom appearance of Therese)
But I guess I just have got into this bad habit of talking to myself, or rather talking at you, instead of to you. (He looks then to Talita trying to see who's behind the curtain) The same goes as if I were talking with your dead, I mean dear mother, that of course if she were still with us.

The girl opens the curtain, swooping it with a snap, curls the rope that holds part of the mantle elevated, caresses it between her fingers and takes the soft fabric around her hand leaving a knot hanging to reveal her voluptuous body. Holding the drape still she gives him a gentle smile and blinks her right eye.

TALITA
(giggling with a somewhat disturbing sound)
Mais, Andrew, elle n'est pas la, n'est-ce pas?
She's not with us anymore, or is she??
It's been such a long time...
(jumping to his arms and embracing him in a tender lace)
...since the last time I saw you!

ANDREW
(To himself)
She changes the subject as she changes her clothes...

TALITA
(dancing and turning in front of him)
I am so happy that you are here I could fly!
(stretching her arms wide, spinning around, her face against his) Merci!

ANDREW
(kissing her in the cheek and whispering into her ears)
How I hungered to taste those lips...

He kisses her into the lips, but TALITA's face changes to an older woman and he is now kissing the ghostly image of Therese.

A Ghost Writer

What would you do if an artist from the other side eager to tell a story contacted you and asked you to be a ghost writer, literally speaking? That's how "The Pierrot's Love" took shape on a story night:

Adolphe Willette 1889's Pierrot tickles Columbine to death

"A Thriller Trailer"


"Author's Page on Amaon"

Fairy of Winter

She danced just like a cat, and just like a bird
She flew as if it was her first flight out of a nest.
She imitated a leaf falling from the tree and heard
Music applauding and so excited he vibrated at last.

Music shouted excited. Dance could only feel pride.
He said the Art of Dance was for him a fairy tale.
Music then asked Dance, while she cried and sighed,
Why she didn't perform for an audience or in a fable.

So Dance told Music the story of her disgusts,
When she tried in vain to move freely as the wind.
She ran and fell, and finally said, “Fly I must!”
Dance wanted to perform subtly from her own mind.

Music then came up with an idea to share.
He stared at Dance and tried to make a deal:
While he taught Dance the secrets of the air
Dance would move and take his soul for real.

Music came like a gentle breeze and without fear
Dance let him enter in her heart and there to thrive.
Music instantly immersed deep inside of her ears.
And it was there that he spent the rest of their lives.

And now Music and Dance have a body and a soul.
Music can Dance, Dance can dream of a symphony.
All they went through made true for their goal
was to have all things living in such harmony.

The source of all ideas as they stand
In Dance and Music should be the same.
So they can walk together hand in hand
Creating possibilities as the main aim.

It is time to face the music,
And learn to listen to the whispers of the air.
This way we can move within the cosmic,
In a starry, enriched life so full of flair.
("When Dance Fell in Love with Music" and "Sea Sons- Rhymes & Songs", a book of tales and rhymes and illustrations with watercolours by Ana Claudia Antunes (available on Amazon).

"Winter Fairy" (Leg-ally Filed)

from the Ballet "Sea Sons" performed and choreographed by Ana Bowlova

Fairy of Fall

The Fairiest of All (from the Ballet "Seasons" created and choreographed by Ana Bowlova)

Time passed and Dance could not grasp at all
How she could not move as graceful as the wind.
So she became quite blue and felt so very small.
But Music found her, for she felt she was blind.Music didn’t have a body, yet had a beautiful soul.
It lived in a gust of wind and it played with flow.
As free and light as a bird it would come and go.
And it could penetrate in all things, high or low.Music knew all the secrets of the air
Its biggest dream was to have a body and dance.
It could sing and fly, but could not dare
Doing any movement and it asked for a chance.

When Music saw Dance it fell in love.
and ordered the wind to stop right away.
Then it asked Dance how she could move,
and how she could do that in such a way.Dance was delighted by its divine voice,
not knowing from where it came for sure.
She showed Music all seasons, as a choice,
and took fall to perpetuate its nature.
("When Dance Fell in Love with Music"- a Tale by Ana C. Antunes)

Fall Fairy from the Ballet "Seasons" created and interpreted by Ana Bowlova

Fairy of Spring

Dance lived in the forest very far away
She had a beautiful body and a strong heart.
She was very flexible and stretched all day.
She moved with anything that surrounded her.Dance moved her body so free like a dream
She imitated all the animals, even flies and bees.
She floated in the water and in every stream.
And she shook and trembled like leaves from the trees.She could run and fall from the sky like the rain.
She could fly and jump as high as the birds.
She made many mouvements and they were not in vain,
for everything had a life all made of words.So Dance tried to catch and squeeze.
A little breath she took and she jumped in a hurricane.
She could not get the wind, not even a breeze.
She observed how the wind touched the windowpane.And that's how she transformed the world in four seasons
Trying desperately to fulfill her wisdom,
she penetrate into the forest and proclaim
that from now on four seasons shall reign.
So here it came first the Spring
All pretty and charming she decided she would be
She left her essence, her perfume in all things
for she had a colourful joyful way of living.
("When Dance fell in love with Music" and "Sea Sons-Rhymes & Songs" Fairy Tales by Ana Antunes

Leg(ally) Filed

Making a study of a choreography so complicated that I cannot even remember how to dance it. Well, I will have to rehearse it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, after all it's the practice that makes perfection, isn't that right??

Yet my toes're already torn
for a new dance to be born,
though tough, Ballet shoes,
they are not toys for toes.

Now that's my Fairy of Spring for my Ballet "Seasons" I got five ballerinas doing the choreography, four on each corner and one in the middle, dancing with the flowers who will give life to Spring.
Spring Fairy (choreography created and performed by Ana Bowlova)
Ballet "Seasons" by Alexander Glazunov

Fairy of Spring

Dance lived in the forest very far away
She had a beautiful body and a strong heart.
She was very flexible and stretched all day.
She moved with anything that surrounded her.Dance moved her body so free like a dream
She imitated all the animals, even flies and bees.
She floated in the water and in every stream.
And she shook and trembled like leaves from the trees.She could run and fall from the sky like the rain.
She could fly and jump as high as the birds.
She made many mouvements and they were not in vain,
for everything had a life all made of words.So Dance tried to catch and squeeze.
A little breath she took and she jumped in a hurricane.
She could not get the wind, not even a breeze.
She observed how the wind touched the windowpane.And that's how she transformed the world in four seasons
Trying desperately to fulfill her wisdom,
she penetrate into the forest and proclaim
that from now on four seasons shall reign.
So here it came first the Spring
All pretty and charming she decided she would be
She left her essence, her perfume in all things
for she had a colourful joyful way of living.
("When Dance fell in love with Music" and "Sea Sons-Rhymes & Songs" Fairy Tales by Ana AntunesSpring Fairy (choreography created and performed by Ana Bowlova)
Ballet "Seasons" by Alexander Glazunov

The Summer Itch

Which One? Each On! For each Summer is a different one, and one should take their swimming suit out and make the best of it. Some people say there is a crisis out there. But I say it's a crime to keep talking about that. Let's rejoice with the so many possibilities of a reflection about our own nature and the way we've been treating our Mother Nature. Let's now make amends with each nation, and command to stop so many crimes, and demand all of us to take better care of what it's essential for our existence. I've decided a long time ago to devote my life to Arts, for I know that's the best way (at least for me) of expressing what's on my mind. So here's a study for my ballet "Seasons" as the fairy of Summer is playing everything hot to rock:

A study for my new ballet "Seasons" based upon my book "Sea Sons-Rhymes & Songs" available at Amazon (and in Japan@http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/1435724798/?tag=ld-review-22)

Ballet "Seasons"

I'm making some studies of Ballet costumes and preparing some sketches to produce a ballerina's photo shoot for a new session of a Ballet Concert. Theme: "The Seasons" by Alexander Glazunov all based upon my illustrated book "Sea Sons- Rhymes & Song" (available at: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-sea-sons/37337) and soon I will post more watercolors, pictures and videos about the "Seasons".

Painting, Panting and Patting

I've been checking some of my old presentations on TV and (Movie) Theatres which made me yearn for the past. I surely did a lot in the last couple of years, but nothing compares to what I have done through the last twenty years of my life.

"Write a hooking book,
Plant a tree near a brook,
Have a child
born to be wild..." Well, I wrote more than forty books, I've planted more than twenty trees over the last two years (thanks to my personal recycling deal) and that gives me what? The possibility of having at least ten children!! So I know there is so much more in the horizon for me. But just to contemplate the template ignites so many emotions that's almost impossible not to gasp for some air. And yet I have accomplished so much that I think it is OK to give yourself a pat on your back once in a lifetime. I also have been sharing those moments with cherished friends and I do feel awesome that they appreciate my efforts of turning back in time, or at least trying to freeze a little breeze that passed once through our lives. I am not being nostalgic the least (perhaps only a little romantic) that I simply like to offer a bouquet of precious memories that once experienced nothing can take away. Time passes, right. But a time well spent is a life well lived. And if remembering is to live, then I live to remember!

Memorial Day and Isadora Duncan

Monday is Memorial Day and Tuesday is the day to remember Isadora Duncan. The mother of Modern Dance was born on May 27th in San Francisco. And that's also the day I celebrate my return to Modern Dance. Classical are classic, of course, and Ballet is the basic for all dances, and will be forever in my heart and soul. But sometimes is good to just take out your shoes, let your hair down and dance freely with or without music.

At the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco a la Isadora Duncan, I also ended up participating on a monocycle run for the "Click It or Ticket" campaign (Use your seatbelts and watch out for those cycling):
Also two videos I recorded of the cyclists dancing in their own show:
Let's do some RE-CYCLING...