This is...

This is… responds to multiple themes outlined for Performatica 2018 that are currently very pertinent for Mexico, as well as in a global context. The following themes have particular resonance for the proposed performance:

• Am I aware of the body's possibilities within its own limits?
• How do we adapt ourselves as a community?
• In what way do we create spaces in order to dwell in them?
• What is our capacity to understand global and intellectual diversity?

This is…. uses dancing and speaking to investigate how memory can serve as a fundamental line of enquiry to produce improvised contemporary dance performance. It aims to extend the boundaries that exist for this genre and in doing so, it explicitly engages the audience so that they might be moved to reflect on their own experiences. Performers Doughty and Shenton recall and tell individual personal memories that are positioned concurrently with - at times - seemingly unrelated movement material, which prompts performers and audience to consider 'how one thing connects to the next thing… [and that] within this passage of relation lies the logic, narrative, pattern or subject that we, as human beings, are bound to look for' (Burrows 2010: 111).

Operating at the intersections between individual and collective memory, 'This is…' aims to create a space in which performers and audience have a shared experience with a particular resonance on ideas of community; coming together and the current Mexico/USA political tensions. The improvised methodology supports the development of witty, moving, thought provoking and unexpected commentaries on one's past, present and future self.