Secondary Dominance

Secondary Dominance is a hybrid biographical expression / auto-fiction documentary / long-form music video that explores trauma’s cellular imprint from a place where art and science intersect.

A neuroscientist invites artist, Sarah Small, to speak at a conference on PTSD, trauma, and the brain. During her talk, she reads a letter she wrote to her childhood sexual abuser, igniting a dance-and-music-centric journey into her psychological landscape, illustrating the non-linearity of memory and transformation.

The characters are “The Child”, “The Scientist turn Muse”, “The Lover turn Dragon”, “The Dragon turn Light”, “The Receiver”, and “The Self”. "The Dragon" character is examined through the lens of Balkan mythology, alongside western childhood fairytales, acting as a framework for exploring our far more nuanced lived realities, ones wherein simplified archetypes do not exist.