Tiamat

a vocab word that’s a mythology reference. And a theatrical.

Also, about an upcoming choreography gig.

Rehearsal for the Tiamat fight scene, Red Rocks Community College, 2019. Photo by me. Pictured: Agnes and the robotics team wrangling their Tiamat bot.

Tiamat is a dragon that’s from mythology so old she’s not really a dragon as we Westerner nerds know them, but more of a slimy worm/reptile thing, very much like the dragonlike wyrm who is the end of fearless warrior Beowulf. A female, lizard-like, spawner of monsters (maybe there’s a little Grendel’s Mother in her, too). Tiamat’s element is sludge and she will lick your ass, whether your name is Beowulf or Ahura Mazda. [edit: autocorrect changed ‘kick’ to ‘lick’ in that above sentence, and I have decided I will allow it.]

Of course, as anyone who knows anything about both dragons and myth is well aware, when Gary Gygax & crew constructed the elaborate role playing game known as Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s, they scooped all kinds of creatures both to play and to encounter, from ancient mythology and what I call Old Story. And yes, of course Tolkien’s classic peoples of Elves, Dwarves, Men, and Halflings. And wizards. But where do you think the Good Don got those in the first place? Hm? (Don’t ‘at’ me, LOTR fans)…

Of course any game with dragons in the title needs must have plenty of them flying around in its world, and boy does it: Tiamat is one of the biggest baddies one can encounter in D&D. Her sex is the only thing she keeps from her ancient squidgy origins: a five headed dragon in the game, each of her heads is a different color and spews a different element, as though she’s five chromatic dragons in one. Which of she kinda is.

In popular play She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen, Tiamat does indeed have five heads, but in this case it’s (SPOILERS) the embodiment of the five adventurers our protagonist has been journeying with. There are many fights through this whole show, filled with many D&D creatures (a Beholder, several kobolds, a bugbear) and a cheerleader-led dance battle. The Tiamat fight is the final battle, the boss fight and the climax of the dramatic arc of the story.

The final fight is described by the playwright as ‘the most incredible fight scene in history ever to be put on a stage.’ So. No pressure. But I’ve choreographed this show before, over at Red Rocks Community College, back in 2019. My work on this show over at RRCC culminated not as much with my choreography, but with an immense, phenomenal animatronic behemoth conceived & constructed by the college’s robotics department. As I tweaked the fight and guided the actor who’d be fighting the thing, I reassured her that her previous assessment was correct: the audience would be looking at Tiamat, not really at her very much at all. So in this case the most epic dragon battle supposed-to-be ever was more about the machinery than the dance, and that’s just fine. It’s all art. Gorgeous art.

This time at my beloved Theatre Company of Lafayette, Tiamat is going to be a 5-headed puppet, manipulated by 5 actors we’ve seen through the show as various characters & monsters. It’ll be a good effect, I imagine—sort of like a Wizard of Oz ‘and you were there, and you were there’… And I do have a bunch of scribbled penciled choreography notes left over in a script from that 2019 production, so I’ll have to see if I can salvage and translate any of those cryptic runes, and which bits, if any, are worth repeating for this show, this many years in the future.

(I had a slight tangent planned about Game of Thrones and my history of watching it, not watching it, wanting to read the books and not bothering, etc., but ehhhh. Boobs and dragons are both things I enjoy, but wars of the roses meets soft core rapey porn I’m just not willing to waste my all too short mortality on. I’ve seen the best fight scenes from it, have put in my two gold pieces’ worth, and that’s plenty. And I aver my nerd cred remains intact, thankyouverymuchindeed…)

There are a few more potent (and older) dragons I’d rather revisit. LeGuin’s intimidating and intellectual dragons of Earthsea, Tolkien’s deadly Smaug, and of course the cave-dwelling and treasure-hoarding dragon that’s the boss battle of Beowulf. Whoever s/t/he/y was/ere. And it’s convenient for me, since John Halbrooks is doing another Beowulf readalong right now, which I’ve joined. That’s one of the most iconic (and ancient) dragons in myth and literature. Right up there with Tiamat, even though it’s never named. Maybe Beowulf’s bane is Tiamat?