The Water Projects began in 2011. Vessel, a water happening, was led by a small chorus of dancers embodying the challenges faced by women who collect and manage water resources in underdeveloped countries. They emerged from the artifacts of antiquity inside MCCM and traveled for four hours through the Emory campus inviting others to take part in transferring water from one type of vessel to another. The movement was ritualistic, framing the care and responsibility of this task while valuing the experience of balance and shared timing. 

Women and Water, featured on the Women’s History Month Performance Series in 2012, built a story around the relationships women across the world have with water—in birth, bathing, washing, and cooking. Our collaborative storytelling process had a sensorial point of view. We celebrated water’s impact on our lives without losing sight of the social responsibility we all have as inhabitants of a water-dependent planet.  

Additionally in 2012, Emory College Center for Creativity & Arts initiative drew attention to water issues on our campus and in Atlanta. I developed site-specific work that expressed the interrelationship between natural states in the body and changing terrains and ideologies.  Ann Hall, Professor of Environmental Studies, helped me understand Georgia rivers and Atlanta ground water while I investigated water quality on the Emory campus and in Georgia. I also traveled to Los Almendros Somatic Center in Cabuya, Costa Rica on the Nicoya Peninsula to investigate these environmental issues in a natural environment and collaborate with Dr. Ninoska Gomez and Robert Bettmann, both scholars in somatic ecology. I observed and studied water’s surface rhythms, qualitative patterns, and power. Living in this landscape and culture provoked additional research questions. This yearlong exploration of water culminated in a site-specific dance performed on the Emory Quadrangle, April 12-14, 2012 underneath John Grade’s “rain chandelier.” Grade is a Seattle artist who melted thousands of Dasante water bottles into spirals that caught water. This magnificent sculpture suspended among four trees. Questions to Ask a River or a Creek was rich with movement patterns that reflected water’s powerful adaptability traits and the interconnectedness of water all over the planet. The work specifically addressed damming, and those environments affected by that choice. Collaborating with Grade on his “Piedmont Divide” installation in Lullwater preserve influenced my investigation of evolving relationships between nature and humans, flow and conflict.