Words by Florence Nicholls.
Wakes is an experimental dance film by Paula Riofrío that delves into the depths of our connection to water. Across three locations Riofrío traces somatic pathways that lead to and from the coast, ebbing and flowing like the tide. Wakes includes sections of Riofrío’s poetry which is spoken in Spanish and in English. The rhythms of languages intersect with each other which emphasises Riofrío’s aim to “reterritorialise bilingual explorations in dance films.” No matter the viewer’s fluency in either language, the patterns of speech provide a nuanced musicality to the score that enriches the aural setting of the work as a whole.
Language is full of introspection in Wakes which is mirrored in Riofrío’s softness of movement. Extended positions with outstretched arms fold back to Riofrío’s centre, where the majority of her movement begins.
Whether it is at a train station in south-west London or below an echoey white ceiling of a dance studio, to the rushing tide of the Pacific coast, Riofrío is in constant motion, tracing an existential pathway back to the water from which life emerges. On the beach she sits facing the tide, and her arms above her head trace patterns in the wind. When Riofrío shifts across the sand she leaves temporary imprints behind. Like water, she washes over the contours of her environment, transforming the ground beneath her.
In the next scene, Riofrío is back on the station platform, moving with impulse. Kneeling on the floor with her head flung back, her arms once more float to the sky. Her hands curl inwards and upwards before they return to her chest. Swiftly, Riofrío shifts from the floor to dart and step back and forth on the concrete. In these moments, her narration is staggered, repeating phrase after phrase, “Let me, let me, let us, let us let the wind detach the isolation, because time has glided and I don’t know my name.”
Riofrío’s narration throughout Wakes poses questions to the viewer that submerge us in a mystical pool of her creation. In the early moments of the film, as Riofrío carves curved edges into the floor of an airy dance studio she asks, “Have you ever wondered about your first experience with the world? I imagined it contemplating my shadow, which entails looking down, covered in zenithal light.” Riofrío’s contemplation of birth, with its first conscious moments of existence, reminds me of Clarice Lispector’s reflection on cosmonauts. In her prose, A Cosmonaut on Earth, she wrote “Before the first cosmonaut it would have been quite right for someone referring to his or her own birth to say: “I came into the world.” But we were only born to the world very recently. And then almost sheepishly.”
However, Riofrío’s dance of “coming into the world” is inquisitive, not sheepish; she inhabits a mutual relationship with her environment. Though it may be pushed against, it is equally softened into. As Riofrío dances towards the blue of the Pacific, she asks, “Are you only and always yourself? I am part of nature and the places I go through transform me all of the time.”
Wakes is successful in transporting the viewer along several layered journeys. Firstly, and most explicitly we follow Riofrío’s physical journey to and from the water, where she finds the symbol of personal transformation. In closer detail, Riofrío’s somatic derivé suggests something of an elemental shift; grounded as the earth, rolling as the sea and as unpredictable as the wind. I was most intrigued by the choice of language that resonated with my own contemplations of coming into consciousness. To me, the water is a symbol of nostalgia in Wakes, like a perennial creature that has the knowledge of earthly time which Riofrío attempts to connect with.
Riofrío has created an avenue through Wakes to develop the clarity and style of her filmmaking practice that is already evident in her movement research. I am looking forward to seeing her future projects as she strengthens this prowess in screendance.