RHYME ‘EM TO DEATH portrays the trial of Esmerelda’s goat from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and is stylistically an homage to Carl Theodore Dreyer’s silent classic, The Passion of Joan of Arc. The video was also informed by actual transcripts of 15th century trials in which animals were persecuted as witches.
RHYME ‘EM TO DEATH premiered in the 1995 Whitney Biennial.
Performers: Steve Ausbury, Willem Dafoe, James ‘J.J.’ Johnson, Christopher Kondek, Scott Renderer, Elion Sacker, Dave Shelley, Peyton Smith, Leslie Thornton, Toby the Goat, Tom Zummer
Director: Elizabeth LeCompte
Screenplay: Kate Valk, Marianne Weems
Cinematographer: Leslie Thornton
Editor: Christopher Kondek
Soundtrack: Christopher Kondek, Leslie Thornton
Production Design: Kate Valk
Costumes: Elizabeth Jenyon
Producer: The Wooster Group
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