Emerald Wings

A city park is a space where people can reconnect with a miniature and humanly-made version of nature. In summer 2021, dancer Asuka Watanabe and writer Elodie Glerum regularly met in the same Amsterdam park, where they built a common pool of experiences. They engaged in a dynamic interaction between dance and poetry, with city nature at the core of their creative process. The dialogue between verbal and non-verbal modes created a flow of expressions, signified by poetry and dance movements, and ultimately condensed in a short film. Asuka and Elodie first created some movements together to tune in the concept to work on, based on which Elodie wrote a poem in French, a language Asuka does not speak. Asuka then created new movements, hinged on her impressions triggered by sounds and by the English translation. Eventually, Asuka wrote a poem in Japanese highlighting the sense of freedom achieved while meeting and dancing in the park. The English translation of both poems is available at the end of the film, for which Thomas Shaddock composed the soundtrack based on the visual elements as well as the poetic content.