The memoir genre has swept the book world lately, launching a tidal wave of curiosity about the lives of others. Stories shared can be shocking, uplifting, cautionary and more, but the best memoirs open a window into another person’s experience, in a way that leaves its readers (or in the case of this dance-theatre memoir, its audiences) changed afterwards. 

No audience member who goes to see An Accident/A Life can, of course, ever claim to be changed in even a fraction of the way Australian dancer Marc Brew was after his car accident, on holiday in South Africa when he was 20. In a split second the fledgling ballet dancer transformed into a paraplegic who had to relearn a whole new vocabulary of movement as well as ways of coping with his new life. But the rigour with which both Brew and his co-creator, Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, have approached the task of documenting Brew’s experience, means we come away with precise, almost forensic psychological insight into another person’s world of severe trauma and subsequent recovery. It’s a piece that is in turn surreal, terrifying, heart-breaking and bizarrely funny.

Brew performs solo, though two other dancers wearing crash test dummy masks accompany him on stage. They move props or wield a camera as they record live projections of Brew’s performance at odd, kaleidoscopic angles. His movement is intertwined with text. Brew delivers an almost nonchalantly calm narration from before the crash through to his lengthy hospital stay. As he talks, he moves around the stage, hauling and folding his body, rolling into the foetal position, fidgeting on a sofa. Whatever he is doing, you feel the pull of his need to move; as a dancer, movement is the essence of him. He is sinuous, vigorous, elegant, both in and out of his wheelchair. 

Pepijn Van Looy’s set is masterful, bringing its own surprising and astonishing transformations and perspectives. For much of it a car hangs suspended like a guillotine blade above the stage, as if bisecting the two halves of Brew’s life. 

‘Brave’ and ‘inspirational’ are justly derided clichés of disability narratives; but they will be used to describe this piece, because of its sheer unflinching boldness. Candid and generous would be better though. If there is inspiration to be drawn from Brew’s work, it is not just through the story of him picking himself up after his accident, but that he has the ability to stare his past in the eye and find such meaningful ways to communicate his experience to others. 

An Accident/A Life, Norwich Theatre Royal, Friday 24 & Saturday 25 May; reviewed at Tramway, Glasgow.