A living archive: an encounter with what we carry, what we repeat and what we might transform
Dancer and Performance Artist Rene Eyre calls Say A Little Prayer a work in progress, but that’s because it is autobiographical and her whole life is a work in progress.
On and around an oversized bed, Rene brings together movement, text, film and sound to revisit the tangled terrain of childhood and inherited trauma. Stories, gestures and images surface, collide and take on new meanings as past and present meet.A fever dream. A free fall into childhood, memory and everything that stuck.
More than thirty years after its first performance, the artist returns to this autobiographical work with a changed body and a lifetime between then and now.
This is a living archive: an encounter with what we carry, what we repeat and what we might transform. Raw, intimate and still becoming.
I met Rene Eyre last night as she took a break from rehearsals. I asked about the backstory to the work:
‘Back in ’94 I was commissioned by Chisenhale Dance Space to make an autobiographical piece. I started jotting down stories from my childhood – they were conversational, as though I was telling a mate at school what happened the night before. The stories just poured out and got quite dark.’
This time, she reveals, it will not be so dark: ‘I am revisiting the piece, as the first time round I left the stage with all my stories hanging like dark clouds, and this time I am planning a more redemptive ending.’
This is a solo project Rene feels a need to tell again – Updated. It is not part of a bigger event but, coincidentally, is happening over the road from the Future Ritual performance festival at the Copeland Gallery and Safe House.
‘I am filming the piece as it is the beginning of my live archive project,’ she says, ‘revisiting/revising and documenting old work that was presented before the ever-present mobile phones – these days every breath is documented!’
You are invited to witness Rene’s life in progress – So far.
The Waiting Room, Peckham Rye Station, London, SE15 4RX on 28 Nov 2026 at 17:15
Admission: £5
Booking: https://tinyurl.com/ReneEyreWIP
