Natural cooperation
Following the first performance of Body of Water this evening, the cast shared some moments of reflection and as I made my way home, I considered my own.
For the past ten years, I have been a freelance artist working predominately solo, even while engaging in community based engagements, so it has been very special for me to work collaboratively with the developers of Body of Water, both the research aspects and performance production. Each team within the larger team, student performers, science research and documentary participants, the characters on the screen, Jane, Jodi, Ian, and the faculty, staff and student production team from lights, to music, to cues and front of house, have an instrumental role to play in this symphony. As we play to a shared purpose, even if the order comes unexpectedly, the roles reverse, or we drop a few sheets from time to time, the committment of each part to the whole connects us, supports us.
As individual instruments, we can be clever, thoughtful, provocative, and we can as a community, a full orchestra, as well. But there is something uniquely special about community when it comes to beauty. The solution that really struck me, is “all of the really beautiful things that we do as humans, are the things we do together”, this sensation has been very strong with me during these collaborative experiences with Body of Water.
In the visual arts, we engage often with the concept of beauty. While it may not explicitly definable, we find that one of the key aspects is that beautiful things share is several elements working in tandem, in dynamic contrast and balancing within to create this sense of beauty. While there is beauty in simple, in the solo act, there is an extraordinary beauty is something complex, wild, massive which holds the same simple aspects of beauty as a single object may. It is where human social communities most succinctly connect with our more natural heritage. While it is easier to categorize, to label ourselves, our actions and our needs into tidy categories, broken down into bite-sized pieces, we are one large chaotic, rhizomatic mass without an up or down. When we allow that the opportunity for human communities to be truly natural, our cooperative desires surface and that is truly beautiful.
The expected sensation following the culmination (or the beginning of a series of culminating marks) is satisfaction, completion, and I am thrilled to feel nothing of this sort following this first performance, I feel very much as though a border has been crossed, a threshold from one room to the next (are we moving to the center of the house or towards the exterior? I am not sure yet…), and this is exactly where I might have hoped to be. The post-performance dialogue leading myself and a few students into further community engagements with young people and adults using our art, through our voices as artists and community members ourselves, to continue the conversation.
Onwards (or inwards?).
Sarah
12.07am
6 March
