Get Up and Tie Your Fingers : affective choreography emphasizing touch within community storytelling performances

In this article, the author utilizes her engagement as an artist/researcher within three productions of Get Up and Tie Your Fingers – a play by Ann Coburn that tells the story of the Eyemouth Fishing Disaster of 1881 – as a case study through which to investigating questions relating to the affective potential of choreography emphasizing sentient touch. Reflecting the visceral, tactile embodied lives of nineteenth century herring lassies, the choreography explored performance with things both material and imaginary. Analysis of specific moments within the performances reveals their potential as felt encounters activating touch as a way of knowing for both performers and, through affective processes including haptic touch and kinaesthetic empathy, for audiences. Giving attention to the personal and the collective within cultural memory re/construction, the article argues for the potential of choreography as a 're/membering' of shared cultural heritage.