Bodies of Water is about people, not about lakes and seas, people often talked about but less often listened to, much less often, and this presentation gives them a voice.
It is a 40-minute presentation performed on the pebble shore of the Thames at Deptford when the tide is out conceived by director Matthew Xia in collaboration with dramaturg Francesca Beard and oud player Rihab Azar that responds to Warsan Shire’s poem Home with the personal testimonies of people in the local community who have crossed the seas in search of refuge. Extracts from Home are combined with their many voices.
A group of people of various ethnicities cluster round a boat near the edge of the water. There is the rich, mellow sound of the oud played by Rihab Azar and a babble of greetings and questions: Where do you come from? Why are you here? Who are your people?
As the group line up at the water's edge, Warsan Shire’s words, delivered by Laila Alj, speak for all of them:
“no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well…
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.”
Individuals now step forward to make their own contributions, telling perhaps of the turning point that made them leave their home, describing an incident on the perilous journey, sharing a memory of happier times or making a comparison with life in the UK. These are personal moments that are often poignant and moving, finding your child’s body in the rubble, tearing up your passport in the airport toilet, being made to throw food and water overboard to make room for more in the boat.
Sometimes accent or delivery are a barrier to full understanding, but there is no doubting the feeling. These are people who may have been through many changes and experienced many situations, but they always remember home, though now home may be the barrel of a gun.
They come in search of a better life, but they also bring gifts that may enrich British lives, their talents and cultures offered in song and dance and symbolised by casting stones into the Thames. Some earlier group movement that looked like hauling on rigging is more difficult to interpret.
This sharing by people who have crossed the seas to seek refuge is undeniably moving, for though it may not tell us anything new, we hear it directly from them, with the warm sound of Rihab Azar's oud sometimes turning to tense agitation and the sound of the waves as the tide flows a constant reminder of what some of them may have been through. I never knew the Thames could make so much noise.
Bodies of Water is a free show but bookable. Most of the audience stand, but there is seating for those who really need it, including wheelchair space. Performance times vary to fit the time of the tide.