Ocean Dance v3
Channel: Living Data
Date: 2020-07-23

Dance: Lisa Roberts
Animation: Paul Fletcher
Music: Stephen Taberner
July 2020
This animation combines different responses to the same dance, of water currents flowing from the Southern Ocean to the Arctic. In the Covid-19 pandemic, Paul, Stephen and I each worked from different places. I performed in my living room as I imagined myself moving in the currents. I danced in ultraviolet light, with white paper bands on head, wrists and ankles. White lines of movement captured on camera trace a complex journey of transformation I imagine in the water flows, as Southern Ocean currents spiral clockwise and are transformed by complex forces to an anticlockwise movement as they reach the north pole.

Animator Paul Fletcher responded to the video recording from where he lives near Bendigo, Victoria. He multiplied, layered, coloured, varied and syncopated the tempo of the original gestures. Also a musician, Paul also made a track that works as another stand-alone iteration.

And from Lawson, in the Blue Mountains of NSW, musician Stephen Taberner composed the  soundscape, "when we wander". Stephen explains, 
."..this music came about very directly... I looked at the images and played what I saw. quite soon there was a sense that was both nomadic and aquatic. so....I filled the sink with water and got to work with some saucepan lids and wine glasses..."