We went there to meet the creators of Med Theatre. Med doesn't stand for medical. I forgot what it stands for right this moment but its an anagram for something. They specialize in site-specific and locallly based performance. The company mainly takes inspiration from Dartmoor. It is a vast piece of wilderness with extremely temperamental weather and lots of local history and legend. One legend in particular is that of Kitty Jay.(Legendary Dartmoor, Back in the late eighteenth century, 1790 some say, an orphaned baby was taken into the Poor House at Newton Abbot. The little girl was named, as was the custom, with a surname beginning with whatever letter the Poor House had progressed to, in this case 'J'. As many of the commoner names had been taken the baby girl ended up with 'Jay'. In those days the word 'Jay' was also a slang term for a prostitute so the Christian name of Mary was added.
Mary Jay remained at the Wolborough Poor House until her teens where she supervised the younger children. Then she was sent to Canna farm which was located outside Manaton. Here she was to be employed as an 'apprentice' which meant she would work both in the house and on the fields. This was to be a hard life as the task load was heavy, the days long and the rewards few. A decent meal and warm clothing were luxuries that many of these 'apprentices' learned to live without. It may have been at this farm that Mary Jay got her more famous name of 'Kitty'.
Not long after she had been at the farm she started to receive the attentions of the farmers son which at the time may have seemed a way of obtaining some security and a sense of worth. Sadly, as in many similar cases she fell pregnant and soon discovered that her meaning of worth was very different to that of the farmer and his wife. Clearly the girl had 'thrown' herself at their son and with the name of Jay, no wonder.
The end result was that she was thrown out of the farm and left with a reputation as a 'slut'. Kitty knew only too well that once word got around she would never find employment in the area and that only left the prospect of returning in disgrace to the Poor House. Tragically Kitty Jay took the only other option and was found hanging in one of the barns at Canna.
The custom of the day was that any suicide could not be buried in consecrated ground as so they were interred at a crossroads, some times with a stake driven through their hearts. This was to ensure that the restless soul of the departed could not return to haunt god fearing mortals.
This was the fate of Kitty Jay, she was buried at the intersection of a road and a moorland track. The grave soon became known as 'Jay's Grave' and it did not take long for strange events to start taking place. On certain moonlit nights a dark figure could be seen kneeling beside the sad little mound with bowed head and its face buried in its hands. Nobody has ever been able to say if the spectral figure was male or female because it was always wrapped in a thick, black cloak. There are two schools of thought as to who the ghostly apparition is, some say it is the spirit of one of those responsible for driving Kitty from the farm and others say that it is the soul of the faithless farmer's son who as punishment has been sent to stand vigil over the grave of his victim and his unborn child.
The other phenomenon associated with the Kitty's resting place is the daily appearance of fresh flowers on the grave, nobody is ever seen leaving them but no matter what time of year there are always flowers, posies or greenery sat on the lonely mound. Tradition says that the flowers are the work of the piskies who out of sympathy tend the grave throughout eternity. However, as the photograph below shows on this visit there were no fresh flowers on the grave, maybe the piskies were having a lay in.
The Photograph Below is of her grave. You can see the little marker and the flowers lying on it.
We then came back and talked a lot about site specific performance. Site specific performance is performance that is specifically revolving around or inspired by a specific site. Med Theatre has used a lot of Dartmoor inspired themes including the building of Dartmoor Prison, the Dartmoor Hare, and others. They asked us then to divide into pairs and come up with an idea for site specific performance. I came up with one revolving around another Dartmoor legend that I then paralleled to Artemis and Actaeon in ancient greek myth. First the legend of Bowman's Nose (Moretonhampstead):
In Moretonhampstead's neighbouring parish Manaton, two of the most striking of Dartmoor's famous tors are located - Bowerman's Nose and Hound Tor.
We now know that the granite tors are the dramatic result of millions of years of weathering. The strangely human and animal forms of Bowerman's Nose and Hound Tor led earlier generations to different conclusions, however, and myths and legends about the tors still circulate on the winds of Dartmoor.
According to local legend, Bowerman was a 'bowman' at around the time of the Norman conquest. He was roaming the open moor with his hounds when he ran into the evil huntsman (or, in some versions, a coven of witches), who turned him into Bowerman's Nose; his hound became Hound Tor. Below are pictures of Bowman's Nose and Hound Tor:
Now paralleled to the Greek myth of Artemis and Actaeon:
The goddess Artemis - seemingly a grown woman, but paradoxically one destined never to reach menarche (the "eternal teenager" ) - is observed (probably accidentally) by a young huntsman(Actaeon) as she bathes naked in a stream. He stares in fascination and awe at "the most beautiful vision ever beheld by man" (to quote a title from a hilarious silent movie made of the myth in the 1920's). But his harmless voyeurism leads to tragedy; Diana sees him, and fears he will boast of what he's seen. And so she turns him instantly into a stag - which his own 50 hounds then tear apart.
I thought it would be a great piece of site specific performance to combine these myths and perform them in the valley between Bowman's nose and hounds tor, which are easily visible on either side. Dartmoor and Med Theatre were great. I think site specific performance may be my medium and I am now considering it for work in my dissertation.
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