My name is Jocelyn Woods and I am a queer, non-binary actor/director/writer/vocalist living with a severe (rare and unknown) neuromuscular disease in Cambridge, VT. As a gifted child, training in the performing arts began at the age of 5 in classical music. My journey in art directing began with the Ecstasy of a Cripple project in 2012 in collaboration with photographer Thomas Dodd. Disabled and uncensored, the image series displayed my diverse body as an artistic medium, passionately shattering societal paradigms surrounding disability and sexuality. My stage debut as actor-writer, “The Fool’s Riddle: Hysteria has No House,” confronted medical gender inequality, the uterus as a demonized oracle and unbinding the patriarchal asphyxiation of the Muse, performed in 2014 at the Black Box Theatre, Burlington VT. Followed by “The Garden Elixirs” (Burlington Fringe Festival 2018), “Sappho and Mnasdika: a Lesbian Fantasy” (Burlington Fringe Festival 2019), I began performing and filming Odes Sapphique,” a semi-opera depicting the life of Sappho through Renée Vivien’s french translations. Transcendental erotica is a theme in my fine art series “The Paradox of Man” (2017) “Ovulation” (2018), “Isle of Lesbos” (2019), in collaboration with Montreal-based photographer Gordon Fischer, in which I staged, directed, designed and posed in theatrical group and solo tableau vivants, further explored in experimental short films “La Fusée” and “Mes lèvres ont soif” (2020). “Vulva Epiphanies” (2019) marked my debut art exhibit, celebrating the aesthetics of the most shamed body part in history, featuring vulva portraits in ontological and theatrical presentation. “GRAVITONS: Into the Black Sun” (2019) was a multimedia performance showcased at Off Center for the Dramatic Arts, which I directed, choreographed, and performed in alongside three dancers, which explores Butoh-inspired homoerotic movement, vocal chants and trance-induced states. As an ongoing student of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and alumni of the inaugural “Awareness without Judgement: a Teacher Training Intensive” by Stella Adler Studio, I coach acting technique and embodiment practices. Founder of the Theatre of Ecstasy, I facilitate a laboratory for kinetics of heightened states of consciousness and creation of omnisensory immersive theatre. Acting mentors include Josh Davis, J Claude Deering, Antonio Merenda and Betsy Parrish. Recipient of a double scholarship by Jamie Wheal from Flow Genome Project for graduate level intensives “Leading through Fire” and “Flow Performance,” I integrate neuroanthropology and peak optimization strategy in my art and teaching. “Madrelingua”, my feature development, is the brainchild of 10 years of experimental scriptwriting, building an epic fantasy world of queer horror and dark fairytale. In 2022 I coached, directed and acted in a nearly all-queer cast to film a concept test for “Madrelingua” which features a queer disabled protagonist played by yours truly. My passion and duty is the dismantling of oppressive societal paradigms through liberating the outcast Oracle, with my disabled body as the voice of the marginalized.
As a non-binary disabled artist, semi-bedridden and unable to walk for 20 years, not only is my story missing, it is actively silenced by the patriarchal blade. Born with a severe (rare and unknown) neuromuscular disease, I performed as a pianist until I tragically lost mobility at the piano during a severe onset of myalgic encephalomyelitis at age 18. Ironically, it was after I became semi-bedridden that I found my Voice as an art director and actor. If no one is going to tell my story but me, then it is my duty to resurrect the Oracle on behalf of the marginalized.
After 10 years of creating visual art and theatre, I have found cinema to be the place where all mediums unify. Experiencing firsthand the terror of state-sanctioned vilification has exposed me to a raw passion within my self, a voice in the wilderness that succors my soul with ecstasy. This is work that cannot wait, for our survival and thrival depends on it.
Madrelingua, my feature proposal, is the story of Cassandra of Troy as a gender non-conforming cripple. The Maiden Cassandra’s gift of prophecy is cursed only because Apollo claims he has given it to her, and demands her sexual obedience to validate it. Because she refuses to lie with him, she is then punished: to always tell the truth, but never be believed.
In the domain of the progenitor, voice and generative forces are only seen as benign if they are bequeathed by the male predecessor through sexual slavery and ownership of Logos, the word. The cryptic ciphers of the Oracle were historically terminated in favor of spoon-feeding her the favored political rhetoric of the state: the only way to spurn this mouth-rape would be to risk blasphemy, anarchy and heresy, which is exactly what the Maiden does.