I was struck by the elements of ritual in Hollins history. There were many reports of Freya rituals and pseudo-witchcraft among the students but ritual was a part of Hollins everyday life. Most notably, in the late eighteen hundreds each of the students had specific routines they were required to execute throughout the day, be it dressing, entertaining, eating or studying. All actions were stylized, formal performances which were often inspected and graded. I wanted to create a piece based around one of these everyday rituals. I was also very interested in the impact of silence in a theatrical piece, physical instead of spoken monologues. The formal ritual would provide an opportunity to explore this and using such extremely specific body work it would be an experiment in melding theatre and dance in a naturalistic and performance.

I wanted to be as historically accurate as possible for this work and the old tea house seemed an ideal setting. There the girls were instructed in etiquette, specifically the minute details of formal teas and entertaining. I did not gather enough specific information to finish this piece but I found the concept quite interesting. Proper etiquette was essential to Hollins education through the fifties and optional classes are sometimes offered even now. Had I been continuing my research though another semester I would have been interested in attending one of these classes as well as finding texts and photographs from earlier courses.