Adventure Scribes!

Writing Prompt for Adventure Scribes!
8pm – 10pm • 2nd Monday of Every Month • Sanctuary LAX

Performance, Performers, Perfume & Promises

Some potential questions to consider:

What are your general thoughts on or associations with performance, performers, perfume, and promises? Where do these four words take you? What lives at the intersection of these ideas? What is your relationship to them? How are they similar and different? What metaphors, aesthetics, images, sounds, textures, scents, or phrases come to mind?

What does performance mean to you? Is performance something that happens only on a stage, or are we performing versions of ourselves every day? Where do you perform—in relationships, at work, online, at parties, or even when you're alone? When does performance become self-expression, and when does it become disguise? Is there a difference between pretending and becoming?

Tell me about a performer. Who are they? An actor, musician, dancer, drag artist, burlesque performer, magician, clown, storyteller, public speaker, or someone who performs constantly in their everyday life? What happens before they perform? What happens after? Who are they when the audience disappears?

What is the relationship between performance and identity? Are we ever completely ourselves, or are we always choosing which version of ourselves to reveal? Can a performance become authentic? Can pretending to be someone else teach you something true about yourself? What happens when the persona you created starts to feel more real than the person underneath it?

What is perfume to you? What scents immediately transport you somewhere else? What smells remind you of a person, place, season, relationship, childhood, heartbreak, celebration, or particular night? Can scent create a memory? Can it create desire? Can it become a signature, a disguise, a warning, a weapon, a seduction, or a ghost?

Tell me about a perfume that doesn't exist. What does it smell like? Who wears it? What memories does it contain? Maybe it smells like the last summer before everything changed. Maybe it smells like a person you haven't met yet. Maybe it smells like forgiveness, danger, a secret, an old theater, rain on pavement, or the exact moment someone falls in love. Who would buy it? Who would be afraid of it?

What happens when perfume and performance collide? Imagine a performer whose scent changes depending on the role they play. Imagine a stage where every character has a distinct fragrance. Imagine an audience that can smell lies. Imagine a dancer leaving trails of perfume behind them as they move.

What is a promise? What makes a promise different from a wish, a threat, a prediction, a vow, or an intention? Why do we make promises? Why do we break them? What promises have you made to yourself or someone else? Have you ever made a promise you knew you couldn't keep? Have you ever kept a promise long after the person you made it to stopped believing in it?

What happens when a promise becomes a performance? Can someone perform sincerity? Can a promise be beautiful even if it isn't kept? What if the act of making the promise matters more than whether it can ever be fulfilled? What does it mean to promise something impossible?

Tell me about someone who is performing a promise. Perhaps they have promised to become someone new. Perhaps they have promised never to return, to love someone forever, or to seek revenge, transformation, escape, loyalty, silence, or forgiveness. What happens when they realize they have become trapped inside their own promise?

What is the relationship between perfume and promises? Is perfume a kind of promise? A promise that someone will remember you? A promise that you will return? A scent left behind after someone leaves? Imagine a perfume created specifically to fulfill a promise. What does it smell like? Who made it? Who wears it? What happens when the scent finally disappears?

What does it mean to leave something behind? A performance ends. A person leaves the room. A perfume lingers. A promise remains. What traces do we leave behind when we move through other people's lives? What remains after the curtain closes? After the scent fades? After a promise is broken—or fulfilled?

Tell me about the space between the performer and the audience. What is exchanged there? Attention? Trust? Money? Desire? Fear? Energy? Fantasy? What does an audience owe a performer? What does a performer owe an audience? What happens when the audience believes the performance is real?

What happens when someone cannot stop performing? Maybe they have forgotten who they are without an audience. Maybe they perform different versions of themselves for different people until the identities begin to blur. Maybe their entire life is a stage. Maybe they discover that there was never a single “real” version of themselves waiting underneath it all.

OR:

Write a story, tale, allegory, or poem that takes place in an alternate reality where performance, perfume, and promises have physical power.

Maybe every promise becomes a visible mark on the person who makes it. Maybe broken promises leave scars. Maybe performers can literally transform into whatever character they play. Maybe perfume allows people to borrow someone else's memories. Maybe certain scents can reveal lies, summon ghosts, alter personalities, or make people fall in love. Maybe promises are bought and sold like currency.

Perhaps there is a theater where performers never remove their costumes. Perhaps there is a perfume shop where every bottle contains a different future. Perhaps performers are legally required to reveal who they are when the curtain falls—or perhaps they are forbidden from ever doing so.

How did this society become this way? What happens when someone makes a promise they cannot possibly keep? What happens when a performer refuses to leave the stage? What happens when someone discovers that the perfume they've been wearing contains someone else's memories?

Is this world a utopia, dystopia, satire, tragedy, comedy, fairy tale, romance, mystery, horror story, or cautionary myth?

Bonus References:

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“Perfume is the key to our memories.”
— Kate Lord Brown

“The most important thing is to be able to sacrifice what you are for what you could become.”
— Charles Dubois

“Promises are like the full moon, if they are not kept at once they diminish day by day.”
— German proverb

“The body says what words cannot.”
— Martha Graham

As always, write whatever you feel called to write.

Write a poem, essay, short story, memoir, monologue, haiku, character, or scene. Write about a performance you remember, a scent you can't forget, or a promise you kept—or one you didn't. Paint, draw, think, consider, create. You can also ignore the prompt completely and write about anything else you wish, or edit an older piece to share if you don't want to write something new today. And remember, you don't need to share (though sharing can be a way of caring).

Thank you, as always, for supporting the creative community at Sanctuary. 

Warmly,

Lilith

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