“So, there’s this suitcase. If I were the choreographer
of my life, in the planning stages before anything had
happened, or else at the end when all is done, and
nothing can be altered, I would begin with that. Start
with a bare stage, except for a large, cardboard case,
the kind my father used while travelling in Africa on
business, with a big enough cavity for a dancer to
scrunch up in. The first problem would be
claustrophobia; then how to emerge, how to step
outside the confine.”
The memoir is a companion piece to Eloquent Body, looking at how dance practice can help us manage our lives. It also focuses on how we move through the world.
Answering the question: What is this really about? can be the hardest aspect of writing memoir, perhaps because it carries the weight of that potentially terrifying question: What is my life really about? In Dance With Suitcase, it took me several drafts to realise that I was investigating freedom and limitation, desire and restraint, as they have shaped me.
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