WRVS Heritage Plus project, 10 session Jan- April 2008

By Domenico Trillo

Over the course of ten sessions in early 2008, a group of WRVS Heritage Plus participants were invited to reflect on their life stories with a emphasis on emotional content, an often undervalued yet rich resource. Dance was used as the key element in inviting the body, with its unique emotional intelligent, to explore these personal stories and redefine them through the medium of movement.

This was, in essence, a gentle, non-performance process, aimed at creating an atmosphere where people could bear witness to the underlying meaning of their own experience. The nature of approaching stories from this perspective of emotion and motion involved delving beneath the surface of mere practical facts. The resulting expressions and meaning of this session were often subtle and/or private, and uneasily lent themselves to demonstration or quantitative evaluation. The stories shared were not recorded in detail as the focus was not on spoken expression, but contained within the movement itself.

The artwork ‘Emotions in Motion’ was created based on information taken from these sessions. The triptych symbolizes changes of perception as static, isolated, historic perspectives evolve through exploration, mutual participation, and the conscious channelling of physical energy.

The positive and negative word streams in the painting refer to themes that were suggested to the group as specific memory aids.

‘Emotions in motion’ by Faith Brooker, 2009, Acrylic