Immersion, suspension, depths, quiet, transformation.  I saw Guillermo Del Toro’s extraordinary new movie, The Shape of Water, last night.  It is my new favorite movie of all time.  Last night, my dreams were full of images of underwater suspension, hovering in the depths, of state changes, solubility.

Maybe some of this is because I am developing a water dance, River/Body, and my thoughts and dreams are very full of what it is to enter the waters, to become the waters, to join our waters with other waters. One part of my research involved learning about the small creatures living within the currents, unseen, always present – damselfly nymphs, water boatmen, diving beetles, giant water bugs – little beasts of the river shallows.

This movie is about a larger creature – a merman and his connection with a different kind of nymph. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it.  Sally Hawkins is exquisite – Chaplinesque –  reminding me of Fellini’s lovely wife, the actress Giulietta Masina

And then this movie is an inter-species love affair. I have spent the last twenty years exploring what can happen between species – specifically horses and humans – if we will only listen, if we will only allow ourselves to drop into the deep well of sharing movement as language, movement as the heart of connection. In this drama between a mute girl and a creature from the depths, movement is everything and silence speaks volumes.