I Remember Myself

In 2023, Artistic Director Gwyn Emberton carried out a three week R&D in Sweden as part of the Autobiography of the Body project ‘I Remember Myself’. The research took place at Skånes Dansteater and MARC residency centre. The work continues to be in development.

Dancers: Amancio Gonzalez, Bella Khanamidi, Efva Lilja, Kim, Noble and Yoirgos Pelagais

Composer: Sion Trefor

Lighting Designer: Thomas Zamolo

Rehearsal Director and Dramaturg: Sarah Bellugi

About I Remember Myself - The Autobiography of the Body Project

I Remember Myself shares questions about what histories our bodies hold, that we might not remember. We experience the same life events, such as trauma, pleasure, taking a fall, arriving in a new country, laughter, pain, love, but in unique and individual ways. And what happens when we tap into those moments.

Audiences who come to I Remember Myself will be immersed in a highly interactive work that is communally shared but profoundly intimate and personal. They will leave having rediscovered memories that have perhaps been forgotten deep in the body’s archive, or having looked at old memories in new and unexpected ways. Each new audience will create a unique version I Remembered Myself with four dancers in each performance.

“It was probably the most emotional performance I have ever seen in my life”, from an audience member of Autobiography of the Body Project work in progress sharing.

Tools for recalling memories from the body / Method

The project takes inspiration from the work and techniques of psychiatrist, author and researcher Bessel van der Kolk for people suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Daniel Levitin’s writings on the ageing body and research into body awareness and self-consciousness.

Inspired by and developed out of the various methods used by Kolk, we created a toolbox from which to sense and name sensations that trigger memories in the body. Zoning in on and amplifying out of associative sensations through what we call the ‘amplification chart’, which includes temporal, spatial and sensorial descriptions (internal and external) manifested and generated through the body. There are meetings and provocations between the dancers that lead to other sensorially induced memories. These in turn feed back into more processing of sensing and naming to revisit past experiences from the archive of their bodies.

Audiences as participants as audiences

The audience are participants and audience at the same time, in the ‘part workshop, part performance’ work. They take part in both ‘mindful’ action and physical sensation generation that leads to associative memories, in a process of sensing autobiographical moments for themselves. They will participate in the actions with the dancers, as well as becoming observers of the dancers as they move through their own memories, which acts as a visual stimulus for the audience to project their own autobiographical moments back onto the dancers’ bodies in a process of ‘feedback looping’; sensations and memories stay with the audience as they observe the dancers’, revealing more of their own biographies back to them.

“You were doing what I was feeling like”, sharing of work in progress audience member of Autobiography of the Body

Intergenerational impact / Making the work available or accessible

Working with five dancers from across multiple generations offered a template to view how a dancer’s history is inscribed on their body, movements and self. Whilst at the same time, the intergenerational aspect of the project reveals social and cultural changes over time and a way for us to view them in a personal and a contemporary context.

Who gets to be a dancer and who gets to see and experience dance has been at the forefront of much of our work and thinking behind it; challenging conventions about who should be performing and who is allowed to experience dance as participants and audiences. The work can and should be performed by older dancers, dancers with disabilities and dancers who are Deaf or blind.

Performance spaces

The performance will be created for a multitude of different spaces from traditional stages (where audience and performers will inhabit the space together) and non-traditional spaces such as community settings, school halls, galleries.

With lighting and space designer Thomas Zamolo, we created a simple scenographic template for each space wherever is possible, so that public spaces can be transformed to support the audiences to dive into their own biographies. The audience will move and shift in the space throughout the performance.

Developed with support from Wales Arts International, Region Skåne, MARC and Skånes Dansteater.