Review: Bodies Of Water (Greenwich+Docklands International Festival)

Review by Beth Bowden

⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s not often you find yourself standing on the banks of the River Thames as a show starts, but that is exactly where Bodies of Water begins. We join the ensemble by the water, with pebbles underfoot, and the water rushing in closer every minute.  Our time here, on the riverbank, is precious and limited - the playing space is offered up to us by the tide. 

It feels as if we have been gifted this time, not only by the water, but also by the performers. This is a piece of work that has been built around them - part of the fourth collaboration between Greenwich+Docklands International Festival and Actors Touring Company, and the show was devised with South East London Community Partners (All Change Arts, Creating Ground, Women for Refugee Women and Woolwich Common Community Centre).

Directed by Matthew Xia, and with Dramaturgy by Francesca Beard, it has been created with local people who have ‘traveled across land and water to seek refuge’. The company takes turns to share snippets of stories - from places close by, and far away: all loosely themed around the questions: Who are your people? What do you want? Where do you come from? They are joined, in chorus, by both the River Thames and Rihab Azar (Composer and Musician) - who sits in a boat on the shoreline, beautifully and creatively playing the Oud. The three: voice, Oud and gurgling water combine and score the dance and acting, offering a layered soundscape for this outdoor stage. 

Bodies of Water is a personal, intimate moving antidote to the increasingly stereotypical, negative and xenophobic discourse around migration and refugees in UK Media and public narratives. Filtering through the performance, are extracts of the poem Home by Warsan Shire - delivered bracingly by Narrator Laila Alj from the helm of a boat. This poem is what inspired the creation of Bodies of Water. I first read Home at University, in a class taught by lecturer Dr Aqeel Abdulla, about Diaspora and Community Arts. It is about the refugee and migrant experience, but mostly about what home is - and the words have increasing resonance in 2024: ‘the insults are easier to swallow than finding your child’s body in the rubble’. The poem has stayed with me ever since that first reading  - it’s not one that you forget easily - and is a reminder of how theatre and writing can evoke memory, nostalgia, and a sense of place. This is what Bodies of Water does. The stories are a window into experience: inciting empathy, offering knowledge, breadth of experience.

The setting (though gorgeous) is a bit precarious, and does limit the movement and acting of the Company - an unavoidable part of choosing a site specific venue. Wet pebbles underfoot make a tricky stage!  I am torn, and wonder if this space offers more hindrance than help - even though I love listening to the voices and waves together. Occasionally, I also feel a bit lost in the structure of Bodies of Water - and the storytelling could be more tightly connected to the narrative to help guide us. We touch on each episodic story so briefly, and I wanted longer with each person, or to come back to them later on to hear more. There were some absolute funny, moving, clever, generous story gems that felt too quick, and too fleeting. 

That said, we come together as an audience and a newly formed community, to share and hear histories, voices, journeys. They echo off the water, off our bodies and off the river walls…there is singing, and dancing, and gifts bestowed on the river and London of respect, hope and joy. These stories pool around us, a small community standing by the edge of the water, water lapping at our ankles: where the river becomes the road, where children play, where you find yourself alone in the middle of the sea… 

Bodies Of Water plays until 31st August. Tickets from https://festival.org/gdif/whats-on/bodies-of-water/

Photos by David Levene