What does it mean to do again, to do anew, or to return to?
We began with play.
We played ourselves, telling each other a truth and a lie.
We repeated each other.
We repeated ourselves.
Replicating our ways of being.
We tried to remember and we actively forgot
We made the effort of remembering visible, letting the struggle of recalling guide us somewhere new
We let our mistakes reshape the game.
Following a trajectory of what was erased and what was gained along the way.
Setting rules that were impossible to follow
The breakdown of a system a validation of its presence.
THE RULES
The game we created followed three phases, gradually becoming more complex
1. RE-TELLING
We are all stood in a line along the back of the space.
The first member walks to the other side of the space and turns to face the line.
They tell the group one truth and one lie about themselves.
They return to the line.
The next member follows, retelling the first person's story as accurately as possible, then adding on their own.
The next person does the same, adding theres. And so on and so on...
Any mistakes made had to be adopted by the next person.
2. REMEMBERING
The rules of phase one continue.
If someone forgets a line, they have to recall the first time they forgot their lines whilst performing.
These additions have to be memorized by the rest of the company and added in at the same points.
The whole time we are less concerned with the 'original' and only attempting to repeat the one before, allowing the truth to be reconstructed.
3. RE-CLAIMING
The rules of phase one and two continue.
If someone is telling your story wrong, you can go and correct them, repeating the original and reclaiming the 'truth'.
FEEDBACK
The position you were in brought attention to the space in-between the person telling and the people trying to absorb the information to later repeat.
The inclusion of 'the first time I forgot my line...' was interesting and fun.
The performance of trying to remember, and the difficulty of it...how does it affect your body and voice in that moment you forget?
It was intellectually rich and amusing.
There was a lot in the form, with repetition comes difference and what you're doing becomes something else. What is gained and what is lost? Perhaps the things that are forgotten/erased relate to the lost energy in entropy.
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