Elysa Wendi
Elysa Wendi

Senses of Ten - Work 6

Reconstructed Memories of My First Solo and the Last Rhino in the Forest

Film

Elysa Wendi

If Forest Remembered

Single-channel video, [30”00]
2021

The death of the last Javan Rhino in Vietnam in 2010 invoked a sense of loss and dislocation, instigating a deeper reflection on the director's identity as an Indonesian who has been wandering for years outside of her birth country. If Forest Remembered is an autobiographically inspired film, weaving between the restless spirits and her future self in the studio where she danced in her youth.

While I searched for the last copy of the video documenting my old dance solo performance from 1998, I found that my feelings resonated with the plight of the last wild Javan rhinoceros, which passed away in 2010 after walking in the forest alone for years. Interweaving my personal memories with poetic reenactments, I am curious about what it means to face extinction.

In Memory of a Dance: Prologue

Single-channel video, [15”00]
2021

The film explores the non-existent archive of a solo dance created in 1998 for Elysa Wendi, a retired dancer. This absence instigated a quest to piece together fragmented memories and reimagine them into a new construction, In Memory of A Dance.

Co-directed with Hong Kong filmmaker Lee Wai Shing, In Memory of a Dance: Prologue invokes the fractured memories of my first solo dance to instigate the formation of a new memory that is not quite history and not quite fiction. Retracing an intangible archive for a lost work, I seek to explore the potentials of trying to reimagine what I will only ever partially remember.

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Work 7 →

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Senses of Ten - Work 6

Reconstructed Memories of My First Solo and the Last Rhino in the Forest

Film

Elysa Wendi

If Forest Remembered

Single-channel video, [30”00]
2021

The death of the last Javan Rhino in Vietnam in 2010 invoked a sense of loss and dislocation, instigating a deeper reflection on the director's identity as an Indonesian who has been wandering for years outside of her birth country. If Forest Remembered is an autobiographically inspired film, weaving between the restless spirits and her future self in the studio where she danced in her youth.

While I searched for the last copy of the video documenting my old dance solo performance from 1998, I found that my feelings resonated with the plight of the last wild Javan rhinoceros, which passed away in 2010 after walking in the forest alone for years. Interweaving my personal memories with poetic reenactments, I am curious about what it means to face extinction.

In Memory of a Dance: Prologue

Single-channel video, [15”00]
2021

The film explores the non-existent archive of a solo dance created in 1998 for Elysa Wendi, a retired dancer. This absence instigated a quest to piece together fragmented memories and reimagine them into a new construction, In Memory of A Dance.

Co-directed with Hong Kong filmmaker Lee Wai Shing, In Memory of a Dance: Prologue invokes the fractured memories of my first solo dance to instigate the formation of a new memory that is not quite history and not quite fiction. Retracing an intangible archive for a lost work, I seek to explore the potentials of trying to reimagine what I will only ever partially remember.

← Work 5

Work 7 →

Back to SENSES OF TEN