Abstract:
Testing Waters explores where water ecology, dance performance and the everyday converge. Practice-‐led interdisciplinary research focused on the connections between identity, place and environment that aimed to explore cultural, social and scientific aspects of the environmental issues of water. I situated this project in the place where art and science meet. Through the lens of ecology I described this project as an ‘ecotone’ (the place where two habitats converge) creating the possibility for new choreographic life-‐forms. Using the dancing body as site of research, I engaged in ecological place-‐sensitive performance practice through a kinesthetic sensing of nature that encouraged a slowing down and taking notice of the world around me. Through ongoing and changing relations to urban and natural environments my investigations became the focus for Whau (faux) science, a series of pseudo scientific experiments. This work was critically informed by current research on choreographic empathy (Susan Leigh Foster, 2011); ecological performance (Sandra Reeve, 2011; Nigel, Stewart, 2010 and Baz Kershaw, 2012a, 2012b, 2007); ‘liquid perception’ (Jacquie Clarke, 2010; Gilles Deleuze, 2005); and eco-‐feminism (Elizabeth Grosz, 2011, 2008; Donna Haraway, 2010a, 2010b, 1991a, 1991b). I developed choreographic actions that evoked transformative perceptions of everyday activities developed through an appropriation of De Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life (1984) and artists collective Wrights & Sites. I applied these theories to performative experiments at selected locations in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland City). The significance of this research was to be found in its attention to ‘meta-‐morphorical interruptions’ of daily life that created connections between soma, city, home and urban waterways within the context of impending global ecological catastrophe (Bottoms and Goulish, 2007; Kershaw, 2007). The methodology of Whau science avoided sequential logic through actions aiming instead to evolve prismatic angles of interpretation, lines of flights and rhizomatic proliferation (Carter, 2004; Deleuze and Guattari, 2008; Grosz, 2011, 2008; Kershaw, 2012a). Through testing and disruption these performative actions were aimed at inspiring imaginings towards untold futures. This research was guided by the following research questions: How might a series of choreographic iterations be considered part of an ecological practice? How might solo performance explore ‘liquid perception’ and inspire a collective imagination for sustainable futures? I tested choreographic practices that were deemed ecological and sustainable drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Baz Kershaw’s thought experiments (2012) and Paul Carter’s concept of material thinking (2004). Research was activated through the performance character of Millicent the domestic scientist/mermaid. By focusing on the everyday ‘small’ acts of domestic life through the multiple personae of Millicent, the performance element of this study attempted to evoke for audiences a sense of ‘liquid perception’ and slow choreography highlighting performance in the everyday. I explored ‘ecological becomings’ and modes of ironic self-‐parody whilst drawing on the work and practices of performance artist Bobby Baker and Wrights & Sites. Millicent existed in the hybrid space between domestic life and water ecology and provided a voice for my personal experience of this research. As a multi-‐modal research project Testing Waters morphed between various registers of performance and writing in a fluid play between the abstract, the literal, the fictional and the scientific. Testing Waters explored how choreography can actively contribute to developing new varieties of critical thinking in an era when environmental concerns are becoming integral in the daily theatre of our lives.