Two performers. Two bottles. Two messages. Two fresh water sources. Two oceans. Two tide tables. Two cameras. One film.
Two dancers’ bodies separated by skin, screen and sea look out towards the horizon and acknowledge the third body that lies between: the ocean, a body of salt water at the same concentration as their own. They are asking 'how do we communicate across distance?' that of time and space, that which exists between our awareness of global crisis and our local everyday behaviours, the split between our humanity and our ecology, the chasm between the scale of what we need to do and what we are not doing? Can we reach out with, across, and through the transformative, immersive medium of water and telematic touch?
In the age of ecological crisis, what would our message in a bottle read today?
In December 2013, we exchanged (via sea mail) bottles of our drinking water, around which was wrapped a message articulating our memories about and concerns for water. When the parcels arrived, we took each other's water and words to the sea at a local site (Wales/Canada) where we improvised a solo performance 'response' for camera. The footage was subsequently edited together into a split-screen film presented here, the images overlaid with the audio recordings of us reading each other's messages.
When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function
Shakespeare The Winter’s Tale IV, iv
