Two weeks since Yo Nakamura and I presented our 2 weeks research of  "Cymru & I "  to a crowded Waleslab audience. More info about the project here.

The informal presentation was formed by the video attached and a short draft dance by Yo that will be posted soon.

The video portrays our research made at Aberystwyth where we spend 5 frenetic days gathering memories and trying to understand the concept of welsh word "Hiraeth".  We collected around 120 Gb of footage. Yes, your heard right, 120Gb, enough to make " Cymru & I  Making off" or "Cymru & I Director's Cut", but I guess it is the result of two artists enjoying every single moment of it.

My approach after meeting and being shortly briefed by Yo, it was not only to create a documentary film but also to add more matter to the project.  What I have understood working on own projects in the past and recreating mnemonics is that memories are made of information layers, you can recall a detail but that detail can be magnified by a picture of that instant or a person that lived that instant. 

Both, instinctively, followed three story lines. Yo's character discovering this new place, the interviews and Yo's little dance sketch/answer recalling those memories/interviews. Three different aesthetic approaches that combined well in post production.

The result I believe serves rightly to the project, setting up a standard method.  Creating a parallel storyline in which Yo's character is portrayed travelling around Wales or the world, discovering new places, meeting new people and gathering new memories.  Content that can be presented prior the choreography inspired for those memories, building up place after place or merging into the performance as a whole or via sound/video fragments from the footage. An info aid that will magnified, in either way, the mnemonic/dance that Yo is after.

But, will see what future developments bring to the project and what would be the outcome, because it is, only, the beginning of our collaboration. By now, it would be great to hear your thoughts.