Fishing gestures

How do bodies move with water — and with each other? The Gestures of Fishing performance workshop invites participants to explore gestures, rhythms and imaginary worlds together that are inspired by traditional fishing. Fishing is not only understood as practice and traditional knowledge, but also as a form of living together and as a collective choreography with water.

The performance is based on encounters with four traditional fishermen from Guanabara Bay, whose movements and knowledge have been incorporated into the video work Gestures of Fishing and the immersive installation Forest of Tides. Their gestures form the starting point for joint physical exploration: The participants generate waves, follow the rhythms of the tides, move like a school of fish and experience connectedness and interdependence in interaction with other bodies and space. Bodies become hooks, connections become nets, and symbolic knots reveal the cooperation and collective intelligence that is inherent in fishing.