In an attempt to allow for concrete reality and intimacy to enter my work and the dance scene, I will use my own reality and trauma as a motor for movement creation. As a dancer I have used my emotional state as a force, and made my self transparent- I have emptied my self on stage and touched the audience with that. But i have often been slightly unaware of where it came from. I am curious as to how conscious and concrete I can speak, when connecting my personal story with my dancing. “The body keeps the score” as the tittle of the book by Bessel van der Kolk implies, he speaks of his work with traumatised patients and how he accesses trauma, through movement and body work, in order to eventually heal it. Van der Kolk’s research has inspired me to challenge and research my own physical memory in an artistic process. The body does keep a score: as a dancer we are often confronted with that fact, in terms of body memory and injuries. But to what extent does this score reshape the body and the mind? Dose it reshape our personality? I am left asking if my abuse has something to do with who i am today? And what? What are the subtle effects of the violation of intimacy? dose it shape our identity? Through video diaries, my physical research and interviews with my family, friends and therapist- I will look for how my past has affected in my physical body and my identity.
Why Film? I started photography with an obsession for closeup textures and details, later I became fascinated with capturing larger spaces and the whole composition. I now am especially inspired by the attention to detail and storytelling in a spacial composition. I feel that there is an entire potential in the format of dance on film to be developed and researched. The camera allows for stillness and time to reflect, through the lens we see every detail and emotion, it can be intimidating and Intimate in a subtle form at ones - “Less is more” in a way - I am curious of what this means to creating movement and what it makes with my process when I include the camera from day 1. While this research uses the medium of film, it is not solely aimed at creating a film. But to explore the realm of intimacy through the lens and to develop and specify what choreography and movement made for the camera has for potential and differences to choreography on stage. Searching for a format that allows for honesty while combining a documentarist approach with my artistic aesthetic; a format that combines the abstract with the reality in an artistically uncompromising manner.
*Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR, aid programm DIS-TANZEN by the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland