Bubble, Splash and Drop – Water as an Object of Exploration

The characteristics of water is the starting point of a performative research practice. We immerse ourselves in the flowing quality of our body movements and explore the sonic properties of water as a material for creative processes with sound and movement. The characteristics of water, its texture, its movements and its sounds are the starting point of this workshop of performative research practice. Water separates and connects on the one hand horizontally and on the other hand vertically, its presence defines living spaces, it is permeable and malleable, at the same time powerful in its strength, devastating in its absence. The approach to this multifaceted element takes place through explorative research on water as an element of movement: we immerse ourselves in the quality of the flow, effervescence and languid drift of our bodily movements in order to develop choreographic elements from them; we investigate the sonic characteristics of water in the form of waves and refractions and transfer our findings into (sound) creative processes. As a vade mecum, Italo Calvino's "Six Memos for the Next Millennium" (1988) will accompany us, which seem significant to him: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity and consistency. His aesthetic values developed for literature can be transferred to design aspects in performative work. They are characterised by a preoccupation with their respective opposites: for example, the balanced handling of weight is what makes floating possible in the first place; knowledge of the richness of different meanings makes exactness possible.