Eugene Chow’s Experience (Participant) [he/him]

These 8 weeks has had been a journey of sorts through my life and my understanding of theater. The idea of remembering as an act of care brought me into this work, and I enjoyed bringing certain memories into the space and caring, then finding gestures for them. I came from a gestural background of theater, and in life I don't gesture much, so part of the work lay in getting myself to embody my words in life. Gestures, though, aim for a common understanding and are often done in relation to all the people on stage and off. When this work pushed me to put more care into myself, to be a little more selfish, to take the sensitivity and bring it into my memories and re-living them, part of me balked. Where was the relation to everyone else? Where was everyone's relation to me? What would the audience think? As I continued the journey, I began to find a happy medium between caring for myself and crafting a journey for myself through a specific memory, and doing the journey in gestures and movement in relation to people around me. Taking space for myself - it's something that I don't yet do enough, even as a 32 year-old man.

As I try to relate to more people, and try to unbind any specifics and stereotypes I have of them, I realize that in caring for myself, I need to do that for me as well. Oftentimes, when we hang out with people long enough, we begin to see the world through their lenses, and when we love them, we become their reflections, we fill ourselves with them. Sometimes, I detest the me that happens as I am with people. As I do this work, and begin to turn away from solitude, I realize I need to unbind myself too.