VALENTINA

​Day 2
Morning session
Continued working on trust, on getting to know each other so that we can gradually go deeper into exploring fear, approaching it from a more personal angle, it cannot remain au niveau de la forme, we need to delve into it. In pairs, one is the guide, the other is guided with eyes closed. First getting the partner to explore levels and personal space, then taking them around the room, changing speeds, exploring those comfortable and uncomfortable spaces we had found yesterday. There is something about theatre as an art form that requires exposing oneself and trusting others, turning fear into something useful, getting over fear or perhaps working with fear to get out there, expose oneself, trust others, play. How do we do that?

Afternoon session
Shona lead this session focusing first on childhood fears and then on mapping out Tunisia, Tunis and the medina of Tunis both through movement and on paper.
Introducing our childhood nounours to each other. Taking others on a tour of our childhood bedroom. N's bedroom was on the rooftop, could see the sea and the minaret of the oldest mosque in the medina. The bed was close to the wall on one side because he didn't like having empty space next to him. In the drawer of his bedside table were a nail clipper and a screw drive.
Childhood memories of fear: the neighbours' house's grey wall looking so tall, imagining falling from it but never landing, stuck between the sky and the courtyard floor, looking at yourself from the outside; fear of stepping into a room, de franchir la seuil, bloquage leading to loss of job; the dog who jumped out of the balcony, the head is the heaviest part of the body they said in school so if you lean too much from the balcony you can topple over, the tiles making shapes and una rosa dei venti; Fantasia as the ultimate scary memory for kids who perhaps did not have big scares when they were young, and what this says about you; a bald man with long black clothes, what fear looks like; the colour black having a negative/evil/scary connotation; aunt's husband the eye patch nurse, presence in the house casting a mood qui met mal à l'aise, his beard dyed with henna even though at the time under the dictatorship it wasn't a very good idea to have a beard, closing the door behind him when he went to pray, no TV or music allowed.
Mapping out a city that the Senzas have not yet explored. Imagining it through paper but not being able to base it on experience/images lived first hand. How certain streets can only be accessed at certain hours by certain young men from the medina, mapping the city according to who you are and who you might encounter in specific places. The imagined fear and actual danger. The imagined life abroad and the imagined life here. The blue sky above, the blue water below, then at night the black sky above and the black water below: the boat is a rectangular box in between the two.
The link between courage and fear. There wouldn't be courage without fear. How fear comes, how fear arrives and how it leaves, how that change happens.