This project critiques the idea of choreographed, rehearsed and recorded performance by allowing a live, relational composition to determine bodily movement. Field recordings of unnoticed water sources act as a rhythmic composer, guiding the body through attuned responses rather than predetermined gestures. These movements are not only documented in the video but also translated into dance scores using Labanotation and printed on polyester dorado, resulting in an installation where natural sounds, bodily movement, and human-made material coexist in a layered and relational space.

The inspiration began when I was distracted by the sound of a shower next to my bedroom due to poor insulation in the shared flat and also the raindrops outside of my window. This drew my awareness to the invisible presence of water that surrounds us in everyday life. Simultaneously, it resonated with Pauline Oliveros’s beautiful writing, Some Sound Observations in which she analysed the everyday noises she encountered while eating in the restaurant or walking on the street. Worthy of mentioning, John Cage’s Water Music in which he emphasized how music could be produced by daily objects and even nature itself.

After collecting a range of water sounds - dripping taps, flowing pipes, boiling water and showers. I then randomly combined them into a rhythm for my performance. Rather than representing the water, my body became a living sensor, responding to the beat and flow. As I listened, my joints echoed the drips from the tap, my arms swayed with the water running through the pipes. As its pace quickened, my steps accelerated accordingly. When the water boiled, my body undulated, waved and flowed with it. After recording the performance, these movements were subsequently translated into scores by using Labanotation, a well-known choreographic methodology invented by Rudolph Van Laban in the 1920s. Therefore, intangible water is mediated through the human body into individual symbols, while the relationship between movements and performance space is integrated into a fundamental notation that can be learned and referenced.