Blue Waters is a performance built around two characters: a tropical storm and a sunburned tourist. Our script, performed live and broadcasted as a radio program, followed the two characters until their moment of meeting, an interruption of great disaster.
Throughout the script, we returned to a song from Sally Oldfeild titled “Blue Waters” which sings about a love that takes over like a river crashing into her.
This form of interruption was a returning point in our research as a question “What interruptions do we invite into our lives and which interruptions violently uproot us?”. We placed the moment of bliss and introspection while on vacation in juxtaposition with the effects of a tropical storm to consider the roles that tourist capitalism plays in climate change and how larger looming catastrophes can be made parallel to our own internal dilemmas.
The performance was made in collaboration with
Marika Vandekraats and was presented at the
Piet Zwart Institute Open Studios, Rotterdam (NL), 2022.
The research was generously supported by
Stichting Droom en Daad.
Photos courtesy of Steven Maybury.
~~~ Intro song - no delay
- 42 seconds
* Marika does seductive movements on the ground
Oooooooooohoooo you’re like the river
Wet
Holding traces of bbbbbbbbbbbanks past
Past the there, past the now
You’re running flowing through me, between toes, between lips
SPIT
Do you hold a trace of me?
You’re like blue waters rising up up up
Up up up up up up up ^
You’re the change in price spikes
The bills from the gemeente,
The dampness in my socks that wont dry on the coldest winter day.
You’re the distance I feel when I call lovers in other time-zone in zone out
You’re just water flowing
You’re floating
You have no worries…..they’re downstream…..flowing onwards
Breathe with me
Oooooo
Oooooo
Oooooo
Ooooo
You’re like the river
Ooooo
Oooo
Oooooo
Oooo
You’re the blue water crashing through me
* Marika snaps out of erotic. Into the real.
To set the scene:
We’re here on sandy beaches. Pink panther skins glimmer beside you in sunlight. You’re on vacation. Applying a little more SPF, you feel the warmth tickling your skin. Waves gently rolling inwards, kissing your toes.
Its a day like any other on vacation, the kind of day where you dont even know what day it is because it doesn’t matter to you. Elsewhere it matters to someone else. It’s Saturday. Soon it will be monday. Monday, the work week commences and UPS drivers will deliver boxes to people's homes, school teachers will arrive early to greet children mourning the longed weekend, stock traders will tighten their ties and head to wall street, and you will return to the beach. Maybe with a book this time. Have you tried eat pray love? How about i love dick?
*Gloriya unfolds a towel, carrying SPF lotion and “The third body”
*Marika gives mic to Gloriya
Scrubbing violently until the fresh tender pink skin begins to show *soft pink pink panther skin*
My arms - slightly burning, lengthen to the size of a python you could wrap around your neck. Stretch marks appear on the epidermis, revealing a question - WHO IS IN CHARGE?
My skin peels off of me, my body loses grip, I become a meaty snotty substance reminiscent to that of the flesh of a lychee. Sliding like snakes on the ground with only slight traces of wear, my *pink magenta pink pink panther pink skin* crawls into the drainage hole and soon disappears from my sight.
* Marika holds the mic for Gloriya. Gloriya has already unfolded her towel and is now smearing SPF.
OOOOOOooooooOOOooooooo
balm me
make my movement through the world slippery
make me your glossy sucker
your glazed eclair
salivated
like the words that I smear on my toast
melting like butter in your mouth
my flavours
rancid
kind of sweet
linger in your oral cavity
(echo)
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO Oo oo oo
de e e e b b b b t t t t t t tt t tt
Crunching on coins ((((Crunching on coins))))
my teeth become gems ((((my teeth become gems))))
my mouth a mollusc ((((my mouth a mollusc))))
pearls spatter out of my mouth as I speak with my debt collector on the phone ((((pearls spatter out of my mouth as I speak with my debt collector on the phone)))))
my feet massaged by the sand of the seashore ((((my feet massaged by the sand of the seashore )))))
I will pay you back but not today ((((I will pay you back but not today))))
OOOoOOOOOOOOoooooOOOooo
~~~Song- with delay - 1.31min
scene - a cut into a bar. Bartenders and tarot card readers are the ones who know everything. Putting the ingredients in one by one, we remember how it was on that day.
“That Sunday, however, I wasn’t worried, or curious. I was of no account.”
You couldn’t count?
No- I was heavy and without account. Immobile, stretched out, brought down, indifferent, back turned, shrunk to a third of my size, untantilized by any question, secretive, cold.
Oh okay.
I don't care. I could have remained lying down for a very long time.
So you just waited to be washed away?
No, I was waiting to be carried away.
I remember that it hit me suddenly. When it came, it cleared the beach completely. Every single fragile structure was washed away — every boat, every fishing hut, as well as every tourist cabana and bungalow. And underneath the rubble and carnage was a pristine beach, scrubbed clean of all the messy signs of people working, a vacation Eden. It was the same up and down the coast: once the rubble was cleared away, what was left was … paradise.
Or that's what it looked like.
…
Have you ever tried a dark’n’stormy?
Do you take credit?
***cocktail shaker shakes****
Oooo
Ooo
Massage those little worries away
Those little receipts crumbled at the bottom of your bag will never be smooth again —
BUT YOU CAN BE
Oooo
Oooo
*slurp slurp
Ooooooo breath in
Ooooooooooooooooobreath out
Crows feet dancing on debris that float onwards to the atlantic
Finding way to smooth irresistible empty shores, pristine beaches
Nothing but you and white sands and crows feet for miles and miles and miles and miles and
Smile. You should smile more, really you’re much prettier when you smile
smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii______TE
And spiiiiTE
Will roll down your back to your beautiful ass because you just dont need it anymore on the beach. With blue waters crashing
Into
You.
crrrrrrrraaaaassshhhhhshhhshhhshh
CCrrrraaassshhhhHHHHH
CRRRAAASHHHHSHSHSHSHHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH
SHSHHHSHSHSHSHSHSHHSSHHSING INTO YOU
(Music fade in here )………
Water fills your ears
Immediately:
*muffled* can you hear me? *mufflemufflemuffle*can you hear me???
~~~ Outro drum - 22s