A dance called remembrance: reflections on autobiographical artistic practice based on a traumatic memory

Abstract

For the past four years, I have been conceptually examining the functioning of a performance called remembrance, danced by me between 2018-2019. I aim to explore intersections between feminist practices and care policies in environments where dance studies take place. In this article, I present autobiographical reflections on a traumatic memory that points to embarrassing situations experienced in the context of dance education. Here, I engage with trauma as sensitive material rather than a concept. The text is an exercise in dance memory that performs a recollection of a dance where care is established through touch between bodies. The concept of 'marks,' as presented by Suely Rolnik (1993), takes center stage, along with the perception of fragility as a disposition to touch and be touched. To potentially undermine a desire linked to the ideal of the modern subject mirrored in the classical ballerina figure, I named myself '(non) ballerina' to differentiate the dance that remembrance introduces from my old experienced as a “classical ballerina”.