Home, Project, People, Process, Performance, Photo Gallery We would like to thank Alexi Taylor for his technical assistance, Lucian Gomoll for helping with the technical glitches, Marlene Ramirez-Cancio for her photographs and Wabei Siyolwe for filming the interview. |
Journal of Water[War]s YoungSoon Kim |
Playing Water: Some Thoughts Shayoni Mitra |
| "...
and over what will be the wars of the next millennium?
Not of land, nor of oil, nor of gold, but of water." Ten people, who are from Colombia, India, Korea, Mexico, Spain, and Wales, met for 12 hours in a classroom in NYU to discussed issues of water and water conflict from a perspective of personal experience and understanding and to propose provisional performance work as a possible forum for those concerns. July 12, Saturday 2003, The ten people gathered for the first time and discussed the world issues of water. They also performed various body movement exercises under Jill Greenhalgh’s direction in an effort to be aware of their own body and others too. We had a discussion regarding the world water situation. Eduardo Flores talked about how water became a big issue politically. According to him, water wars already have been started among the people. The Mexican government has an unfair and manipulative water program. The government gives more water to the rich and less to the poor people, resulting in mass suffering. They have to line up every day to get water. It is just like war. Adriana Cantor introduced the lack of drinking water in several rural areas in Colombia. Some areas have no water for the crops or cattle, so corps ruin. It became the biggest confrontation between the people, police and pollution in the rivers. According to the internet, only 28 percent of households have drinking water in Cartagena Colombia and 30 percent of households is not even hooked-up to the system. Yaneth said that since she did the Water [War]s 5 project with Jill she learned the issues of water socially and politically for example how people waste water in ordinary life. Someday the water supply will be depleted. YoungSoon Kim spoke about how water equals life for everyone. Everyone drinks water, but people cannot drink the tap water anymore because of contamination of water in Korea. They have to boil the water with some teas or have to buy water. The many water companies already have started water wars to find clean water. After the discussion time, the director, Jill Greenhalgh gathered people and facilitated an exercise. Jill asked us to clap one’s hands before she clapped her hands so everyone focused on her hands. All of them concentrated their attention to Jill. While we were focusing on this game, the classroom was silent. Through this game, we were aware of other people and our body. At the end of the class, Jill asked us to bring a single object that we could develop our tasks or actions and to think of an image of water and perform it for three minutes tomorrow. July 13, Sunday 2003 In the second day, Jill made the people concentrate with the clapping game again. The eight people tried to clap before Jill clapped her hands. Jill divided two teams and did the game. One team watched while the other team performed the exercise with Jill. After this, the people who watched this exercise gave their feedback about how the people who did the clapping exercise reacted with their own body. Jill switched the team and repeated the exercise. After this, we shared our own idea about the image of water. Everyone performed for three minutes about their own personal image of water. Megan, who is a nine years old girl, put a book on head and walked just like the women carried water jars on their heads in ancient times. Adriana and Yaneth performed together. They wore red shirts and black pants. Yaneth was sitting under a big table while Adriana was standing on the table. Adriana slowly dropped water on the table, insinuating water waste while Yaneth held a piece of paper, reading, “STOP.” Margarith used a chalkboard and explained how nature and human beings influence and react to each other. Eduardo brought a water battle and put some water on our heads and than he sang a ritualistic song. YoungSoon performed as a pregnant woman and then crouched her body. After thirty seconds, she pulled out her whole body just like a little baby coming into the world from the mother’s womb. This shows water is life. Shayoni brought some pictures, which she had taken at home. She took pictures of water in our daily life that was fit for drinking but used for other purposes for example, from the sink or in the laundry. Jill asked the people to give feedback to each other so they could develop everything by themselves. After this, Jill asked people to bring three light objects, which they can put in their pockets, that they could develop performance tasks. Jill also suggested wearing black costumes. July 14, Monday 2003 The classroom was made into a stage, so Mike installed 25 lamps in the classroom so actors could perform. With 25 lamps installed, the classroom became a wonderful stage because each person’s object was highlighted by one of the spotlights. After that, Jill and Mike listened to people’s idea and helped them so they could develop their own performance tasks with their three objects. They also recommended making everything simple. Jill and Mike asked us to think, “Why we are doing this?” “What is the main issue?” Therefore, we were able to concentrate on the main issues of water. We started to perform. Jill gave us advice on how to choose the speed. She also suggested being deliberate with our actions and with the objects. Jill also said, “Just do your job. Do not try to show something to the audience that is very dangerous thinking. Be honest with your tasks. Think about each of the tasks and do not pretend to be concentrating.” Rehearsal started but most of the actors were not prepared with their three objects because they were still developing their objects and tasks, therefore, Jill and Mike helped them. July 15, Tuesday 2003 The second rehearsal was dress rehearsal. Everyone brought their three objects. Adriana had three objects such as a mirror, salt and ice, and the names of Ganges River. She performed with the mirror. She illuminated the people who came into the room to give them a light to see very clear what she was trying to tell them. She poured the slat into a tiny glass of ice with a very small spoon because salt will be the only thing left if people carry on treating the water resources as we are actually doing it. The last part of her performing was to speak the 108 names of Ganges River. Through the names of the Ganges River, she wanted to make people conscious of what people can lose. Carmen’s three objects were a cradlesong from the play “Wedding of Blood, ” some small ices and a shoe, some plastic bags and a plastic water bottle. She sang the cradlesong, which is talking about water and death, while she was squeezing a piece of material until the last drop came out. She put a shoe on her foot and than stepped on a little water, which came from the melting ice on the floor, to make the hit of dirt on clean water. At the last part, she took tied plastic bags from the plastic bottle of water; it looked like water under light. Eduardo brought a small Indian figure of doll, a small jar with full of water, and a small knife and gravel. Eduardo spat on the face of an Indian figure of doll. This was the fact of that poor people do not receive from the government, an urgent water program, despite the fact that rich people do. This acting was an expression of anger for poor people and showed the hypocrite attitude of the government. Secondly, while he was saying something, he tried to burn a small amount of water in the small jar. The speech was his remembrance of an Indian woman. She told him, “Our land had drought for four years. Most of the families were separated and whole communities disappeared. The land burned, the water burned, and we were burned with it.” The last part of his performance, he did edging of the knife against the gravel with water. He did this because in the city, people get sharp edge of knife with an electrical cylindrical set but poor peasants get the sharp edge of their machetes, which is a big knife peasants use for their daily work by frictioning the machete against a rock with some water. If they don’t use water, the machete would get damaged. The water was symbol of life from destruction. Yaneth had a little glass filled with salt and water, a little calendar and a phrase of ‘I don’t understand’. She was kneeling down in front of the little glass. She was taking in her hand the number of water drops that her hand can hold and than she stood up slowly and transported the water to her second object, spilling the water on the way. She was kneeling down in front of the calendar and she opened it on the first sheet. There was a phrase written with a black pen “I don’t understand” repeated it on the whole page. The first letter of the phrase was written in a capital letters and then she tore off the paper sheet. She deposited the water from her hand and without spilling it on the floor she transported to the third place. She was kneeling down and slowly put the paper on the floor. In this third sequence the objective was to form the phrase “I don’t understand” with the sheet that had been torn out from the note of each page with a different letter on it. Each letter together formed the phrase “I don’t understand” It was very clear to her that the amount of water people have now does not matter how they use it, some day water will be depleted. In the future, if they know that then ‘I don’t understand’ why we don’t do anything to stop this irreversible process. Shayoni’s three objects were a jar of bubbles, plastic bottles of water, and a small container filled with dirty water. Her performance told us about the quality of water. At first in her performance she blew bubbles as something to be played with. It was beautiful but also the bubbles disappeared as soon as she made them. She also tried to drink all the water, which was in the plastic water bottle and twisted it and then threw it. By doing this, each time she threw it, there would be less water available to drink. In the last of her performance she was praying and then sprinkling some of water, which was in the container, on her head. In India, many rivers are considered holy. In Hindu ceremony it is considered complete with sprinkling of some “Holy Water” from the Ganges River, which is one of the most polluted rivers, yet people continue to bless with this dirty water. YoungSoon’s three objects were a small green leave, her family picture, and a small porcelain frog doll. She was holding a small water bottle and dropped water on the leaf until she hit the green leaf. She repeated this action for the second object, her family picture and the third object, the little porcelain frog doll. Through this performance she showed the audience that water equals life for all plants, human beings, and animals. July 16, Wednesday 2003 Water [War]s Performance: Each of the ten people enjoyed performing and through this project they became close friends with each other. Not only was chance to perform but a forum for sharing and learning. We learned that it is important to protect earth’s most precious natural resource, WATER. We really appreciate the effort of Jill and Mike. |
Children
play, citizens play, governments play and now thankfully even we
performers play with water. And while we think we can still afford
to play with this, the most precious of our resources, here are
some facts that I found interesting to play with.
Some
of these facts we know. Some we can guess at. The others simply
shock us. Yet the list goes on. The few researched and reproduced
above are the ones that have been playing on my mind since our perormance
and are what drew me to the piece in the first place. Water[War]s
is an endeavor whose importance cannot be overstressed. Not just
because it got us to play (with) water in ways that we might not
have imagined before, but also because it got us to hear and talk
about this issue of paramount importance, from multiple perspectives. The performance was shortly after my arrival to the United States. One of the things that had struck me on arrival was the sense of abundance - and its concomitant waste - that prevailed in the use of all resources. Lights left on, paper used in reams, plastic enwrapping everything ... and water bought in street corners. Poland Spring amd Mountain Valley bottles extruding from every kiosk, were part of the familiar urban lanscape. Each brand vied with the other to conjure up images of clean mountain springs in distant dream lands still unviolated by pollution's dreaded tentacles. As Jill remarked during one session "the bottled water has now become a fashion accessory." Today even a basic survival activity has become incorporated into our branded existence. Thrist has always had currency in the commercial market, but are our messiahs that rescue us from the dehydrating lands of soft drink giants and beverage chain outlets really that much better? As the discarded plastic bottles form a mountain of their own, there is a paradox at the heart of this thirst factory. In this country every water supply outlet delivers drinkable water. And inspite of all the taps and the bottles, three-fourth of this nation's population is still under hydrated! The average American knows less about water related problems, and more about ozone depletion and climate change. This despite the fact that experts say "climate change has not killed a single person thus far and is unlikely to within the next several decades, even if the most pessimistic predictions turn out to be correct." (Biswas 1996:21). This is not to say that awareness of any one basic resource is more important than the other. What is required more desperately than ever before, is a wholistic understanding of our interaction with the physical world around us. The strain of the all the energy waste and over-consumption is beginning to tell even in this 'land of milk and honey.' The Historical Blackout occurs even a I write these lines. It is a nation waking up to the fact that it can no longer take for granted - arrogantly or ignoranly, the difference is moot - somethings that it always has. The
crisis here can only get aggravated; as it has long escalated in
other parts of the world. "Already in some megacities like
Delhi minor riots have taken place because of water shortages."
(Biswas 1996: 18). As Eduardo pointed out on the first day of our
workshop - the current concern about the future unavailability of
water is the prerogative of the rich. The urban poor have lived
out the harsh realities of parching scarcity for a while now. "Mexicans
from every state of the nation are continually confronted in their
daily lives with poor drinking water and its related issues.”
(Riley, Murphy and Rosado in Donahue and Johnston 1998:238). This
then became for me the essential referential to the group and the
work we proposed to do. Varied as our backgrounds were, our lived
experiences had much in common. Like Asia, though "South America
as a continent has plenty of water, it includes a number of regions
with severe water problems. Even the well-watered areas have difficulty
in surmounting problems connected with the organization of their
water resources, due to the rapid growth of their populations."
(Falkenmark and Lindh 1976). Wherever you are positioned then on the globe, the time has come for even the most utopian of us, to stop and take note. And if people like Jill and all her performers can have their way - to take action. Naturally there are many, many things that every person (for the individual will always be greater than the consumer) can do on the level of daily usage and consumption of water. But perhaps there is also now the need to make the broader connections - who has the water, who controls it and who really needs it? To extend our analogy of this paper - who is in the game and who is warming the benches eager for a chance to play? As peformers, each committed to our own politics, it is necessary for our work to pose our own burning questions. And if somehow we can all collaborate, bring together our different cultural experiences and formulate a way to reflect on the issues for our audience, then so much the better. Here is one case certainly where the veiwers are as much implicated in the action, complication and resolution of this conflict, as the players. For to end with "In the case of water, the global is also the local. The cultural conflicts surrounding water originate and are played out in local ecosystems, and the solutions to these conflicts can be found there as well."(Donahue and Johnston, 1998:341). Lets
then all play water...
References BOOKS
WEBSITES
|