Some 300 years ago, well-to-do young French women, each carrying a coffin-shaped trunk holding a wedding gown, came to New Orleans to help dignify the seedy city.
Then tales of vampires, murder and the Vatican took over.
Now, in 2009, the legend of the “casket girls” has resurfaced on Facebook and Twitter — and on stage. Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre has adapted the tale into an original ballet with an industrial-rock score and will perform the show Oct. 29 and 30 at Pike Performing Arts Center.
Recording artist Cory Gabel, based in Connecticut and Los Angeles, composed the music for what he and Hancock are calling a %“modern-gothic-alternative-vampire ballet.”
Fact and legend have blurred, but as the story goes, respectable women were sent from France to marry “heathens” in crime-ridden New Orleans and procreate a better society.
Nuns from the Ursuline convent met the women, and this is where the story opens up for interpretation. In one version, the girls try to retrieve their dresses from their casket trousseaus, only to find vampires inside.
What is true, according to Hancock — who first learned of the tale on a trip to New Orleans — is that all the windows on the third floor of the Ursuline convent are still sealed with 8,000 “blessed” screws. Add that to true stories about mysterious murders near or at the convent, and the casket girls take on a life of their own.
Hancock’s version involves three casket girls, one of whom quickly falls in love after arriving in New Orleans. When the nuns go to her trousseau to retrieve her wedding dress, they discover that the gowns are missing.
“We have a dozen vampires who come out and attack and kill the nuns,” Hancock said. “The church probably wouldn’t be too happy with that.”
The show ends with the audience wondering where the vampires came from, and which character might actually be a vampire. “We’ve kind of designed it so there could be a sequel,” Hancock said.
Going?
“Casket Girls” will be performed at 8 p.m. Oct. 29 and 30 at Pike Performing Arts Center, 6701 Zionsville Road. The Gregory Hancock Dance Theater has taken to Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere to let people share their own versions of the New Orleans legend. It’s also posted teasers on YouTube and started a blog at www.thecasketgirls.corygabelcomposing.com.
Show tickets are $25 day-of ($15 students/seniors). Info: (317) 216-5455 or visit www.pikepac.org.
