Retracing Steps

Retracing Steps was developed at Blacktown Arts Centre AIR in 2011 and has been presented as a solo audience participatory work in Sydney (SEAM at Critical Path), Canberra (S&S Dance) and New York (Movement Research) and as a group work (Spoken Body Projects at the Malthouse for Dance Massive) between 2011-2013

The work uses verbatim theatre techniques, improvised dance and interactive process to focus on memory- individual and collective- early memories and sense of place associated to homes.

AUDIENCE TESTIMONIALS:

“I just found it incredible that you did what you did and you included every one of us in what you were doing, and you were living our own experiences, it was incredible. And even taking us through the house, taking us to that place of remembering being a child, I could enter in. I just found it incredible. I felt very much a part of it. I couldn’t believe it.” – Audience member
 
“Verbatim theatre is usually made because someone has recorded a lot of interviews and makes a very serious piece of theatre about a serious subject. But this is so immediate, it meant that with our stories it felt like such a sense that we had an ownership over it.” –Suzanne Hauser, Director Ryde Youth Theatre
 
“Sometimes when I’ve seen other works that have done the research for the content in advance then there is a disconnection to the material, but I found that I could connect with what you were doing more, because you’d interviewed me about the subject, so the research to the result was just so immediate.” –Tia McIntyre, Blacktown Arts Centre Program Manager

Collaborators on past versions have included

Musician Adrian Elmer and Neuroscientist Dr Kate Stevens

Dancers for the Spoken Body Projects version Alison Plevey, Rob McCredie, Sophia Ndaba, Roslyn Whythes, Gemma Dawkins, Megan Dennett and actors Damien Asher and Adam Deusien