Afterwardness

From the 17 to the 22 June 2019, I was at a residency in The Work Room, Glasgow, developing a new piece, Afterwardness.

This is the third piece in my Freud series, which includes Don’t Say Anything and Ida. It is based in the case history of The Wolfman, which Freud published as From the History of an Infantile Neurosis (1918 [1914]) in SE17.

I started each of the 6 days of the residency with a yoga practice, and then worked on breath and movement scores, voice work telling the Wolfman’s dream and re-doing both of the Wolfman’s paintings housed at the Freud Museum in London.

The work explores the concept of Nachträglichkeit, après-coup, deferred action or afterwardness where impressions, experiences or memory traces gain significance as a result of re-experiencing an event (this is the definition from Sharon Kivland’s wonderful book Afterwards).

The work is, like my other Freud pieces, an intimate performance, for 5 people at a time. I worked with my intersemiotic translation method of gHosting, hosting the ghost of Sergei Pankejeff, The Wolfman.

I am very grateful to Anita Clark, Director of The Work Room and Sara Johnstone, studio manager, for their care, assistance and advice in what was an incredibly interesting and productive week.