Waterdances/Yes Poems

The patterns and qualities that organise the movement of the dancing body and those that form the various geological surfaces belong to the same order. The boundaries between the inner and outer world are conventional. Nature inhabits our bodies, which are simultaneously immersed in it. In the summer of 2021, after a solo journey through the mountain valley of the Engadine, preceded by several months of movement research in a Hamburg studio, choreographer and contemporary dance artist Maria Zimpel, together with filmmaker Claudio von Planta, completed the shooting of the choreographic film "Waterdances / Yes Poems". The leading idea of the film oscillates around the vision of a dancing body as a transmitter. The choreography moves between real and imagined landscapes, exploring the poetics of water’s dances through the work of moving images. The geometric choreographic patterns are confronted with different geological micro-surfaces. The dance conveys a sensory properties of the latter: temperature, adhesion, softness, moisture. Through the camera's eye, these micro-locations are transformed into scenes in which the dancing body interacts with the environment: uses its qualities, tuning into its rhythms and facing the sublime forces that permeate it. To tell a non-linear story of the body’s encounters with the natural landscape, the choreography combines the language of dance art with that of image, clothing design, text and music.

Text: Jadwiga Zimpel