by EL Putnam

“I was talking about time. It’s so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it’s not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place—the picture of it—stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don’t think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.” – Toni Morrison, Beloved

The performance opens with a darkened space and the only light coming from a small projector held by one of the dancers as she spans the room. It is Super 8 footage that appears to be home movies. The aesthetic is shaky yet characterizable of this sort of documentation. The framing is awkward, shifting and truncating bodies as the amateur cinematographer becomes enraptured in the excitement of the moment being captured. It is footage that is familiar yet the figures are anonymous. The dancer moves the video over the floor, then the members of the audience; always in motion so that it is only possible to catch a glimpse of the flickering frames. At some point the projector shines directly into my eyes so all I can see is that source of light, knowing that something is playing back, but unable to look at what is unfolding over me. The projection is then onto the backs of the other two dancers. Bodies become screens and shadows interrupt the ghostly nostalgia.

Fragments consists of a bricolage of actions, images, light and sound; a scrapbook of gestural experience that is drawn from the mundane, abstracted, and reconfigured through the process of trying to recall moments. Actions repeat, flowing through the dancers so that not one dominates the space nor a single gesture. Motions coalesce and then splinter apart.

The repetitive actions became ritualistic as if the dancers are trying to withdraw experience from the recesses of the mind. The multi-sensory aspects of sight, sound, and touch took on the significance of trying to capture something, a whatever, that cannot be represented, but only alluded to through the process of recollection. Touching the body, the clothes, and the face: yes I am still here.

There is a narrative to Fragments that cannot be accessed. Instead, the performance captures the process of trying to recall them while losing them. Memories are created through the details—a touch, a sight, a sound, a smell—little figments of sensory experience that coalesce. Therefore, what can evoke or trigger a memory can be some minor element, which in and of itself is simply forgettable. The repetitive, simple gestures of the performers, the flickering video, and layering of the soundtrack all allude to this process, provoking broader questions: how do our memories inform us? How do our memories inform those around us? What happens when we can no longer access these memories?

The dancer returns with the projector. She again scans the room with its flickering lights dappling the faces and bodies of the audience. Another dancer holds a mirrored ball in her arms. As the light of the projector casts over its fractured reflective surface, shattering the image and dispersing it throughout the room, I am mesmerized by the fragility of the light as it swirls around the room; cracking someone’s celluloid reminiscence.

Fragments is created by Jessie Keenan and includes performers Marion Cronin, Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín, and Sarah Ryan. It ran as part of the 2018 Dublin Fringe Festival, September 11 to 14 at the Complex Dublin. Images by Carrie Lewis.