Thoughts on memory

Last night, I had my first rehearsal with my largest cast - the "piece" or "pieces" that I'm currently referring to as the Lights piece. Something that has been intriguing to me is the idea of how we remember. Why do we remember certain things more than others? Is it because we have a picture from a moment in time? How do we remember - are colors, relationships, situations, people driving those memories? How does one memory or thought lead us into another and where does it go from there? Often times more memorable memories can lead us into memories that we thought had been forgotten.

In rehearsal, I started by talking about my vision for the concert (fairly vaguely) and where this group of people fits in. I talked about the ways in which I like to work (providing movement, some writing prompts and movement invention from prompts, dancers' input in modification of movement, chance, etc.) and also some ways of working in which I haven't had much of a chance (or the guts, interest, or whathaveyou) to try. I gave the cast a choice to choose from my to-do list and everyone was excited to move together, so I taught a phrase that I came up with that was interesting to me and represents some elements from my memory of dances I have made in the past. It was really beautiful to see all of these bodies moving together - we also played around with flashlights just to see what the movement would look like if we were holding flashlights. It's MUCH more interesting with 15 people than it is with 2.

In the second part of rehearsal, I wanted to talk about memory and how we remember and do a writing exercise and movement study. This is an interesting group of dancers - I've worked with almost all of them in some intimate capacity with the exception of maybe 2 and those two are mature and were open to my process, making the whole experience much richer. I asked the dancers to take a moment to think about the first memory they can remember (either their oldest memory or the first one that comes up) and to begin writing about it and follow their train of thought on paper as best as they can. We took about 7 minutes to do this free-write memory train and then I asked those willing to share what they found. Many people found that each memory had a trigger point that led them to another memory - some spanning events ranging in 15 years, and some spanning just a few short days or weeks time. Some jumped all over the place and some moved linearly through time. One main idea that continued to come up is the question of whether the memory was "real" or whether it was a memory of a photograph or video and that was what was being remembered.

At this point, I asked the dancers to do a movement exploration in which they could physically move through the events that they recalled on paper in any way that felt right to them. They were given the freedom to do this literally or abstractly and also were able to allow their thoughts to divert from the original memories. My hopes for an end result weren't to come up with a phrase but to simply see what kinds of experiences would come out of this exercise. I only asked that the dancers do what they felt comfortable with and that they try not to overthink their movement or thoughts. Many of the dancers found that through movement, they were suppressing some hidden memories or deep emotions. Some dancers tried to move through the memories as exactly as they could in reliving and some found abstracted movement through emotional places that the memories took them. It was really fascinating to hear, see, and experience how the dancers were living through these memories. I'm really excited to try some of these things again and in different ways. I think this process can be really rich and I'm interested to see where it goes and if it will transfer into my choreography.