(Un)Covering Artistic Thought Unfolding

Abstract

“What does it mean to reconstruct a dance?” wonders Martin Nachbar in his text “Training Remembering.” Following Henri Bergson, he proposes an explanation in terms of images that are actualized in ways that involve not only the visual sense, but also hearing, touch, and proprioception. Remembering something is actualizing it through the senses. Such sensory actualization is instrumental not only to literally remember moments from our own past, but also to our modes of engaging with the thoughts, ideas, experiences, and creations of others. In this process, Nachbar observes, our own body, with its movement knowledge and experiences, becomes the frame through which remembering takes shape, while at the same time this frame may be questioned and trained anew within the process.