Opening this Saturday 9 July, Hidden Traces is a new sound installation by Gabriele Reuter and Mattef Kuhlmey. It takes the listener through a promenade of voices on the streets around The Place, the dance venue just off Euston Road, London.

A combination of sound choreography, urban history and oral reminiscences of childhood and everyday life in the local area, was used to create a series of short audio plays, which have been placed on listening points on and around the buildings and streets surrounding The Place.

For Gabriele Reuter, understanding city planning and the way the cities are constructed is very much related to understanding space and choreography. In this context there is no dance; here, choreography is about arranging memories in time and space.

Gabriele Reuter (on the right) with interviewee Emma Coates from Wallace Space. 

Gabriele is a choreographer, dancer and urban historian. She works in Berlin and Nottingham and trained at The Place where she has presented many of her works over the past ten years. She collaborates regularly with sound designer, artist and composer Mattef Kuhlmey.

Hidden Traces has been commissioned by The Place and supported by the British Library. The sound journey has been inspired by interviews with local residents made for the project, and archival recordings from King’s Cross Voices interviews, courtesy of Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre.

Experiencing Hidden Traces is free but booking is essential through The Place box office. On collection of your ticket you will be given a map showing the different listening stations, a pair of headphones and a mp3 player. The order of the listening journey is up to each individual listener.

The project has amassed a legacy of audio interviews with local residents, plus sound pieces composed from the fieldwork materials, and a short video interview with Gabrielle talking about the connections between choreography, urban history, memories and the use of dance as a discipline to engage with communities. All the recordings will be archived and eventually made available to listen to at the British Library.

Hidden Traces runs from Sat 9 - Sat 16 July, 10am - 5pm. Please come along for a unique experience.