Eye of the Beholder
AN IMMERSIVE THEATRE PROJECT EXPLORING MEMORY, EXILE & INTERGENERATIONAL INHERITANCE
A project by Mélanie Esther Dorey
What do we carry from one country to another ? What do we inherit through stories, silences, and everyday gestures?
Rooted in my family history and French-Moroccan heritage, Eye of the Beholder begins with an international research phase centred on interviews with women across generations and cultural contexts. These conversations explore how migration shapes family relationships, identity, and belonging, and how memories are preserved, transformed, or left unspoken.
Alongside spoken stories, the research considers the ways memory lives in the body: in preparing food, singing a familiar song, or repeating a gesture learned from a mother or grandmother. It brings personal experiences into conversation while attending to the distinct histories and circumstances behind them.
These encounters will inform the development of a performance combining storytelling, movement, and song. Its form will emerge through the research and the relationships built along the way.
An early exploration : Daughter Workshop
WUK Theater Quartier, Halle, Germany
In October 2025, I took part in the Daughter workshop with Welsh director Jill Greenhalgh as a research residency connected to Eye of the Beholder. Working with autobiographical stories and mother-daughter relationships, I explored how intimate family memories can be shared through performance.
This experience offered a space to consider what happens when a personal story meets a listener, and how that encounter can open a wider conversation about inheritance, absence, and connection.
Ongoing Creation
Eye of the Beholder is seeking research partners, residencies, and co-production opportunities to support its international research phase and future performance development.
If your work connects with memory, migration, or women’s stories, I would love to hear from you and explore how we might collaborate.