‘Core.’ is an empathetic exploration of the internal experience and external display of Anxiety and Panic. The film is a piece of dance film, it utilises the bodies of three Contemporary/Ballet trained dancers to show and recreate the physical experience of Anxiety. The narrative is written by Fox Fromholtz, who lives with Panic Disorder and Anxiety. The sound score was composed by Juice Webster, a regular collaborator on dance performance and dance film.
FADE IN:
On the screen:
CORE.
Sound of a lightbulb turning on and a young woman appears on the screen.
NARRATION
For me, my physical and emotional selves have never had a clear line drawn between them. When I saw the sixth doctor in one year because of a host of gastrointestinal problems, he asked me a question nobody else had before: “Are you stressed at all?”
Young woman on the screen looks confused and looks down.
NARRATION
I was stumped for a long time, and I answered him in the negative.
I couldn’t think of what stress actually felt like so of course I wasn’t stressed…Right?
Background sounds creep into the narration.
NARRATION
The reality is so much different to my naive twelve year old self.
I’ve learned to recognise it over the years, what that doctor guessed at. It almost always starts in my stomach; a year ago I’d have told you it always starts with nausea but in retrospect that is simply not the case. It’s more like a twinge, I guess.
The young woman fades slightly from the screen and young women moving and dancing are in the background.
NARRATION
I couldn’t tell you what exactly, because before I am even aware of the initial feeling, the nausea kicks in, blocking out all but a vague memory.Sometimes it starts quickly, curling and exploding around my insides until it cascades into the rest of my body.
Sounds of catching breath.
NARRATION
When it’s quick, it feels like –for want of a better explanation– someone has thrown a bucket of flour over my body,
The young woman has flour thrown at her and covers her face, then catches her breath.
NARRATION
– except that everywhere I feel it stick, tingles with an anxiety nobody could understand.When it’s slow, it feels like a rock, weighing down my insides, rolling against the walls of my stomach as I fight to ignore it. You’re okay. I breathe in, and out, just like my counsellor always tells me.
The young woman’s face begins to be covered by hands from the characters in the background.
NARRATION
Everything is okay. This is just anxiety. I’m never fooled, of course; the reassurances of whoever is around me, while well meaning, become lost as I try to pretend I am okay.
The young woman is alone again, facing the screen.
NARRATION
In many ways, when it happens slowly, the anxiety is much harder to cope with; the speed at which it comes allows me to ruminate on what I know to be coming next. Of course, when the anxiety comes slowly, sometimes I have the chance to fight it off. But inevitably there is an instance where the slow feeling crosses that threshold and there is the flour, caking my flesh.
The young woman has flour on her face again. A ringing sound begins to start behind the dialogue.
NARRATION
My limbs tingle, my tips feel numb.I can remember one instance where I tore off my shirt, panting as my body flushed with an unbearable temperature,only to later scramble for the same shirt when my temperature dropped and I stood shivering in the aftermath.
Behind the young woman a dancer in the background mimics the narrator’s dialogue, pulling her arms up while the woman in the front shivers. She looks down again and there is movement in the background.
NARRATION
If I could give a location, I’d say it sits at the very bottom of the sternum,occasionally it radiates up into my chest and spreads itself,
like a cancer. A single hand grabs at my chest, and at my heart which beats faster at the intrusion.
The young woman clasps her neck.
NARRATION
Once it grips me, I expect something to be ripped out, but the hand just stays there, clutching at my insides until they become stiff and unyielding. With the grip on my sternum, I remember the nights I spent sleepless. The hand traces my insides; at the skin there is resilience,at the ribs, shortness of breath; the sternum, though, is the crux. In the grip of my past, the sternum freezes, feeling heavy under my skin. At this point it is not so much the memories that haunt me, as they are fleeting – sitting at a table, driving along a back road. They are unimportant information but their imagery brings forth that feeling.
There continues to be movement in the background while the young woman faces down.
NARRATION
I think that’s how this differs from anything else I have felt: anxiety, to me, always has a beginning and an end. But this hand, this intruding hand clasped upon my chest and my heart, and my mind. And it weaves it’s way so insidiously that I can never notice the beginning, just like I can never imagine the end. It does end, though when I shut my browser, and the image from my mind. And, just as the real image disappears, so does that hand around my heart.
The screen goes black.
FADE OUT
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