pp. 426-439 of publication. Water is considered a metaphor of adaptability and change. In literary history, it has also symbolized qualities such as purity (or making pure) and power, especially as a synecdoche of the ocean. Often, its...
morepp. 426-439 of publication.
Water is considered a metaphor of adaptability and change. In literary history, it has also symbolized qualities such as purity (or making pure) and power, especially as a synecdoche of the ocean. Often, its mutability has brought with it an association of being ‘fickle’, as when Shakespeare’s Antony turns tail to follow Cleopatra away from battle. He berates himself as “dislimned …as water is in water”.
Water as a substance, however, is remarkably stable and consistent to itself. Water is highly responsive, but retains integrity. In fact, by dint of its consistency—as stabiliser, conduit, mediator, regulator and even boundary-definer within the systemic fields in which we live--it is the very guardian of the life systems we need in order to survive.
As our bodies are comprised of over 70% water, one could presume it logical to behave like water. I suggest, however, that water’s qualities of responsiveness and resilience are just what we resist—that its vulnerable authority is considered a weakness against which we tend to be on guard. Only by dropping that defensiveness can we begin to find non-damaging solutions to our current ecological crises.
This paper draws parallels between water’s features (such as strong hydrogen bonding, specific heat capacity, surface tension and hydrophobic qualities) and the kinds of realisation that are made, through sensory experience and training, in theatre and dance ecology praxis. I take as an exemplar the recent site-responsive performance work of Melbourne’s Environmental Performance Agency (or EPA). I also take up Krippendorf’s suggestion that, if it made sense to us, communication within and around ecological thinking could be more a cooperative dialogue, as between dancers, instead of a battle. Other models of non-agonistic relationship include indigenous, shamanic and non-Western medical practices. Such models can alter the metaphors we live by, and hence too the nature of our decisions and engagements with the world.
