Dance Ambassador Ophelia Onyeukwu

What responsibility do we bear?

Report on the dance piece "H2flow"

The dance piece H2flow (Artistic direction: Bahar Meriç; Alica Paeske) is an international production created as part of the Move Impact Lab. project by sPERANTO ResPeaceAbility gGmbH and Future Move e.V.

The project brings together young dancers inside and artists inside from Germany, Romania and Greece. Together, they danced to address global challenges in relation to water.

The final performance at the tak in Berlin was extremely impressive and left many impressions in me. Within the dance performance, three central questions were raised:

• What influence does water have on people and nature?

• What dangers, limits and hurdles arise with water?

• What responsibility do we bear?

The opening image of the performance was washing with water on a blue-lit stage. The imaginary water came out of the buckets into the room and filled it. The buckets were passed through the audience rows and found themselves on stage before their way again led to the audience. The integration of the audience made the piece entertaining right at the beginning.

Another strong image of performance that I remembered was the pollution of our seas. This global problem was represented by a cloth with holes. Among them were people. They were moving; There were waves. And they threw garbage out of the holes of the cloth. This image addressed the human handling of the seas directly critically.

The image of the ancient goddess Aphrodite replaced this image. With long blonde wigs and body-hugging suits, the dancers took up the space as antique figures. It acted as a stark contrast to the pollution of the seas. The scene was ended by tourists and other garbage.

Other impressive images, which addressed the situation of water, were also presented in the course of the performance by means other than just dance. Through singing, a goosebumps-giving poem and once again the participation of the audience.

The performance ended with the initial image, only modified. They all had water in their buckets. The surprising conclusion was the head standing in the full buckets. An impressive moment. This picture reminded me of the saying “Don’t just stick your head in the sand”. However, this was water.

As a metaphor, I personally took it with me that we have to take care of the water, in whatever form, and preserve it without polluting it.