for me the piece is very much about this issue of “history of the body”: history of a nation/culture, history in the individual within time and space. i think the history in the body on one hand related to culture and genetic background and on the other hand to environment and experience (friends, relationship, family)
the first part talks about history of a nation in a larger span of time within a body.this part is more about the culture and genetic background. the flatness(one line) of the scene, the aspect of performativity and the undertone of irony suggest that WE is not existing or just an invention of the I.
I think the second part is much more about the history of a person so more related to environment and experience. it is said in a much more subtle way, less linear and pretictable in the developement and somehow with more honesty towards the people. even if we only got to know them for a little hour, i think we can get a glimpse of their history. anyway you will never know someone completly. i rehearsed today with the idea of creating my history in movements. i was thinking of what happend during my life, which experience influenced me deeply and in inspiration of that i created. can you imagin how to combine that with video? i think because we let space and time to the person and me to speak and have their own independant voice, the combination will happen by itself somehow.
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i think we are basically saying the same thing as far as our ideas behind the work! but from what you wrote above, it sounds like you are more interested now in individual character/experience for the second part over the discussion of group dynamics. this is why we would pay more attention to them as individuals and their own words/ways of speaking and move slightly away from the idea of “conversations”. The details of conversations can all still be there, of course, as in pauses, looking, “umm’s”, but they would then not be anymore about trying to “create” a group or conversation, but more so as symbolic of our ways of reacting on society, a reflection of the other that is always next to us.
In this sense, it seems more like you are a little bit more independent from the video again, so that you are more free to maintain your own history as a dancing body (which I think you do really beautifully here), your own character as “Simone”. Maybe we try to keep your talking or interacting with the audio, but more minimal than I had first thought.
Elaine you wrote “our ways of reacting on society, a reflection of the other that is always next to us” is interesting and I think it describes this phenomen of participating a conversation. Being part of a conversation means not only speaking. Because it ist maybe even more interesting to reflect what others are saying and also question what oneself believes in. So it’s what Simone said “the history of a person so more related to environment and experience”…