It was one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ moments. Julia Adzuki had taken the concept of lukasa and danced her own direction.
It was a very excited few hours over lunch when Julia, visiting from Sweden, demonstrated her unique take on the memory boards of the West African Luba people. Known as lukasa (plural nkasa), these boards had delighted me for their beauty and astounded me for their efficacy ever since I first heard of them a decade ago. I use my Victorian Birds lukasa all the time, but know it so well that I don’t need it physically with me.
Above: Julia Aduki (centre), Alice Steele (right) and me at lunch with our versions of traditional West African nkasa and other memory devices.
Alice has been making nkasa in various forms for well over a year now. She even has her three year-old son learning his acacia species with them. It is so cute when he says the scientific names for the plants, pointing to the bead on a little board.
Having learned of lukasa from The Memory Code, Julia has developed a set of 15 boards which fitted magically inside a wooden box. She designed these nkasa to help her when she was training as a teacher of the 15 introductory classes of the Skinner Releasing Technique. [link to http://www.skinnerreleasing.com] This dance pedagogy uses guided imagery as an impulse for movement, particularly for dancers. Each class follows a script which types up to over 10 pages.
Photos: Julia with her 15 nkasa and their box (click on images to see details).
Julia first encoded the 15 classes in a landscape memory palace.
She had trained in the technique in Turkey together with her friend, Deniz Soyarslan. As many of the images which are used within the dance classes make a reference to the landscape, the friends decided to practice the actual technique in the landscape near Tekirova. She and Deniz made cards of notes for all the aspects of each class they needed to remember in sequence.
When Julia and Deniz started the landscape journey, they knew the content of the 15 classes, but could not recall what happened where or the sequence within each of the classes. Julia described what happened when they created a memory palace with a location for each of the classes in the Turkish landscape:
‘When we planted the memory trail, we couldn’t remember the sequence or the correlations between different parts of the pedagogy. We couldn’t place the images. But as soon as we had planted the sequence, it was like a 3D embodied mapping process. The progressions and correlations kind of popped out of the landscape. That was the moment I said to myself: this works.”
“What really excites me about this memory method is the possibility of repair, of embodied relational connection. Making memory trails offers the possibility of deepening human relationships within the environment.”
For Julia, the movements will always have a home in that precious Turkish landscape.
‘I made nkasa back in Sweden because I couldn’t take the landscape with me. I made them in the memory of the landscape, imagining the landscape. The strongest memory of all is still those places on the memory trail.’
‘I had shells and other bits and pieces collected in Turkey which I could use to make them. The nkasa enable me to add detail to each landscape location.’
Above: Julia describes seventh lukasa in the sequence. ‘In this class, there is a movement study about the whole body curling and uncurling. At this location in landscape there were poppies. Their movement as the stems uncurl was so appropriate. I added the curl to the board which reminds me directly of the landscape. I chose the red bead because it reminded me of the poppies.’
Above: Nkasa 4 and 14. These two boards both have shells from the Turkish beach with the centre exposed. Julia chose these as they create an image of the spine for two movements which relate directly to the skeleton.
Born in Australia, but having lived in a range of countries overseas, Julia described how her understanding of Aboriginal relationships to the landscape has changed since using the landscape is a memory palace.
“I love that landscape in Turkey. I loved it before but it is a part of me now. Planting memory in the landscape is also a process of the landscape taking root in oneself. That was a real eye-opener. I have a tiny little inkling now of indigenous connection to Country. It’s just a sprouting seed of understanding, not an ancient forest.”
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While my focus was still on your trio of faces and the objects were all a little peripheral, they looked like festively decorated cakes or cookies.
I’m sure most people that look into this have, or will come to the exact same connection and realize that snacks and meals with some unique features would be perfect to practice encoding on, without having to worry about being precious with the device or what goes on it.
I take no responsibility for someone losing their love of pizza, because they were in the Halloween spirit and decided to try encoding “Song of the witches” on it.
Author
What an intriguing comment. Thank you. I have never thought of practicing encoding on food, but I will now!
What fun!
Lynne
This is great! And it sounds like it is best to create a songline first, and then to put what you wish to remember onto a portable device. I am a professional storyteller and tell the Odyssey frequently— I wonder what memory devices were used in the Greek world? Could a story like the Odyssey be “found” there, either in the landscape or in a device of some kind?
It also seems like the deeper question to this work is not simply “what do I want to remember,” but “What do I want to be in relationship with?”
Thanks so much for your amazing work!
Author
Hi Jay,
Thank you so much for the comment. I gather for some writers that the Odyssey works as a memory palace in that it is a story told over a series of landscape locations which act as mnemonic hooks. But I don’t know it well enough to be sure. There is quite a bit of academic work on that theme. In reading the Greek myths, I notice constant reference to the mountains around Rome and other locations. Unfortunately, as the myths have been retold over the centuries, they have left out the ‘dull bits’. In the originals, it is – the repetition which is invaluable in oral tradition. The details of locations were probably just as important back then, but these have now been lost to us. The hints to this are supposed to be in the Odyssey, but I have not researched it enough to offer any useful opinion. It is something I would love to follow up, but simply don’t have the time. It would be great of someone took the ideas on oral knowledge systems and sought out clues in the earliest versions of the Greek myths. I would love you to answer your own questions and then let me know!
The idea of relationships as well as memory is an important one. The more you get into these systems, the more the relationship grows and becomes an emotional investment, as you must know from your storytelling.
I don’t use my portable devices for the same material as in the songlines. For example, I use a memory board based on an African lukasa for a field guide to the Victorian birds. I don’t have that linked to any of my songlines. But I can see that they could be interwoven, as they are with Indigenous devices. That adds a beautiful complexity.
Have fun with it. And let me know how you go!
Lynne
Wow, that is really cool to see both the boards and the explanation as to how they were created.
Author
It was even cooler to see them on the table and touch them. I am hooked on memory boards.
Thank you for commenting!
Lynne
I keep thinking how I would have found these techniques so wonderfully useful in the past when I was young and studying!
Author
I am old and studying and they are wonderful. I wish I’d known about them when in school and at university too. Interestingly, I hater learning languages at school, but using these techniques, I am now loving it. They are just more fun than when I just had to use rote learning.
Thank you so much for your comment!
Lynne