Remembering a dance

When you try to remember a dance, it never comes back in one piece. A hand gets there first, or a rhythm taps you on the shoulder. Something sticks, something slides away. You follow the parts that return and shrug at the ones that don’t. That is the whole game. Deborah Hay has said practice is how she learns without thinking, and I suppose that means remembering is just another kind of practice, only with more surprises.

This is a video that originally appeared as part of an installation titled CURIOS II: Re-Membering the Dance. In the installation, this video was not shown as a performance but as process documentation, a record of me trying to remember an earlier dance work called “CURIOS,” the earlier dance. I was practicing in a dance studio at UNSW, but I have trimmed out the background, walls, floor, so it’s just me, floating around in half-memory and only the moving body remains in the frame. The intention was to highlight the act of remembering itself: what returns, what shifts, and what won’t settle.

In the physical installation, the video was projected onto a hanging screen of semi-sheer voile, so the figure appeared suspended, almost like a memory still forming. Nearby, I displayed the objects that shaped both works, my original costume, my notebook from the first creation period, anatomical engravings from Albinus, and the cue cards I used during rehearsal. Visitors were invited to contribute their own words, drawings, or reflections on sticky paper and attach them to the displayed costume. These contributions became part of the next iteration of the piece.

What you are seeing now is the digital version of that video element. It remains a document of process rather than a finished performance. It shows the dance in its in-between state: being retrieved, revised, and reorganised. By bringing it into this digital space, I am continuing the project of transforming the work across formats, places, and times. The shift from installation to screen is another iteration, another way the dance moves forward through memory and re-composition.

If you wish, you can reflect on what you see here just as viewers did in the installation: consider what kinds of movement linger, what feels forgotten, and what new meanings emerge when a dance is re-made through documentation.