The work “Gone” broadens the choreographer’s research scope on the theme of Defeat, focusing on collective memory. It is a tribute to the stories of our grandparents during Occupation and Resistance.

By incorporating these stories, the work explores the so-called “difficult heritage,” the wound that remains open, the possibility to overcome it or not, and the imprint it leaves on the collective body as well as on the unique individuals comprising it. When old age turns experience into history, the collective body is there to keep it alive.

Four bodies of different ages are placed in a public space, incarnating a moving sculpture, a living monument to the fallen, who will share the story of their trauma. Drawing inspiration from Lenin’s saying, “One step forward, two steps back,” the choreographer applies it as movement material. The group creates a rhythmic score of bodies, through which the crystallized certainties of a monument gradually melt, transform, and become the testimony of those who fought, were defeated, fell in love, dreamed, and are now elderly, one by one, leaving us. They are leaving. What do they leave behind?

Is there a collective physical memory? Can oral history be integrated? Can dance narrate what is suppressed?