I am planning a six-month research period in Germany, between January and June 2020. During this time, I will seek out places that have emotional, historical and/or architectural significance to me with the intention of inhabiting them in different ways with my physical body.
My father was born in Leipzig and is a Holocaust survivor. His father was killed in Auschwitz. I am the first member of my generation who is going to Germany to retrace some of my family’s steps. The only way I know how to make sense of this historical trauma is through the lens of my artistic practice to reclaim those physical spaces that my father’s family had to flee in 1940. I intend to look for my father’s home, to walk his street and breathe in the spaces he and his family may have inhabited, even for a short time. Using mise-en-scène (costumes, props) and in situ improvisation, I will fill these historical spaces with my physical presence. Through my sensory experience of these specific spaces, I will perform what emerges: movement, story, words and sounds.
