To the place that held me,
(Laban Theatre, July 2025)
About the Performance
This piece was created as the final production of my Master’s degree in Choreography at Trinity Laban. It emerged from my ongoing creative practice, moving myself, which uses movement, reflection, and autobiographical material to explore how embodied experience can generate forms of self-knowledge beyond language.
For this work, I recreated my childhood bedroom through detailed set design, transforming personal memory into a performative landscape. Autobiographical writing and reflection acted as the starting point for movement exploration, allowing me to revisit and reimagine formative experiences through the body.
The resulting performance was intimate and deeply sensitive, weaving together embodied movement, spoken word, and a soundscape composed from recordings collected within my family home. Through these elements, the work invited audiences into a personal yet recognisable experience of memory, identity, and the complexities of understanding ourselves. Several choreographic studies and performances were developed throughout the creative process, each contributing to the evolution of the final piece and the wider investigation into movement as a mode of inquiry.
In Dialogue with Myself
(Trinity Laban Studio Theatre, March 2025)
About the Performance
This performance was an early exploration of the themes that continue to shape my choreographic practice. Drawing on autobiographical experience, the work investigated the complexities and contradictions of identity, asking what it means to create a self-portrait that moves beyond physical likeness to reveal the more fragmented and internal aspects of who we are.
Inspired by theories of selfhood and artists such as Frida Kahlo, the piece explored the dialogue between my private and public selves: the tension between how we experience ourselves internally and how we imagine we are perceived by others. Through movement, I examined conflicting aspects of my identity, including experiences of companionship, confidence and mental health problems.
Created through my developing practice, moving myself, the performance used choreography as a method of inquiry rather than illustration. The work was less concerned with presenting a fixed version of myself and more interested in embracing uncertainty, complexity, and contradiction. In Dialogue with Myself questioned whether self-knowledge is ever singular or complete, suggesting instead that identity is an ongoing conversation between the many selves we carry within us.
Bandstand: A New American Musical
(Northcott Theatre, 2023)
About the Performance
Bandstand marked my choreographic debut for a professional theatre production and remains a significant milestone in my creative journey.
Set in post-war America in 1945, the choreography drew inspiration from the social dances of the era, incorporating partnered movement, ballroom and swing influences to capture the energy and optimism of the musical’s world. Alongside these historically informed styles, I developed more contemporary movement sequences that sought to embody the psychological experiences of the veterans at the heart of the story, exploring themes of trauma, grief, and resilience through the body.
This production was my second collaboration with the company, having previously choreographed their production of Legally Blonde in a smaller venue. The experience deepened my interest in storytelling through movement and strengthened my relationship with the organisation, leading to future collaborations as both a performer and workshop facilitator. Bandstand affirmed my belief in choreography’s ability not only to entertain, but also to reveal the emotional realities that exist beneath the surface of a narrative.
AMY MACKLEY ★ DANCE 