From Taming to Embracing Memory, in stages (and on stage)

With "Triple-Entendre", we want to evoke Memory and what it takes to be able to tame memories before finally being able to embrace them.

Of course in order to express the emergence of Memory, we had to first set the context; a context where memory is absent. All that is there, is the known world, the reassuring rail tracks of daily routine, when we are driven by an automated kind of instinct, where we just plough through the grooves over and over again, paradoxically repeating the same things, not knowing if they're good or bad, not even asking the question, just doing. That's what our first tableau aims to do - set the context, this is what life would be in a human world without memories, we would be reduced to our habits and instincts.

With memory though comes disturbance. It unsettles, it obliges to reconsider the known. And two of the main reactions when faced with a threat to what is otherwise a comfortable routine, are anger and torment.

Both come with fear. Fear of the outside world, and fear of discovering things about ourselves. Within this fear reside worlds of potential, but before this potential can be expressed, perceived, and embraced, one has to deal with the fear, with the anger, with the torment.

Our second and third tableaux aim to evoke those two emotions, anger and torment, together with fear. Both tableaux are solos, where, in fact, the dancer is in a duet with Memory as an Intangible Presence, nagging, disturbing and unsettling the protagonist by presenting herself as respectively an enormous giant and a tiny tiny character.

Those are the images we've been working with.

I've been working on the "Angry" solo today, and found myself stuck in the studio - stuck as when writer's block occurs to people-of-the-pen. So, back home in the evening, I turned to youtube... Not to look up how other people have been dancing anger, no, but to research animal expressions of anger.

Yes, I know, this is a blatant occurrence of anthropomorphism of course, but it was really helpful. And actually, what we read as anger in animals is usually due to a threat to their own territory; in a sense, that is also what memory does, it threatens our territory, our known world, the reassuring rail tracks of our daily routine.

So what did I find out? Well, elephants charge and so do swans and gorillas, with their full weight, girth, span; cats (small and big) hiss and claw; gorillas punch and throw themselves onto the threat; horses and elephants do a lot of "foot brushing"/stomping before they charge at full speed; turtles head-butt surprisingly violently; and swans slap hard with their wings. All these images are very inspiring (and easier to watch than human anger, where my own human reactions to anger automatically involve me emotionally - it's easier to observe angry animals with a certain detachment than it is to watch myself or other people being angry!) and I know I will be weaving at least some of these in my steps, interspersing them with expressions of fear and the overwhelming feeling of having my own space being invaded by a giant intruder with a formidable weight.

Here is one of my youtube finds:

Of course I'm not saying I'll be flapping my arms wildly on stage, but I like the idea of using my full wing span to express defense against intrusion. 
There's also something desperate in the way animals throw themselves fully at the threat in order to threaten back; I might want to explore that...