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A dance-poem by Niamh O’Loughlin
Woman Above Water is a dance-poem exploring memory, voice and survival through movement and text. Drawing on myth, personal experience and the imagery of the sea, the work asks what happens when the things we have carried quietly for years finally rise to the surface. At its heart is a woman caught between what has been remembered, what has been forgotten and what is trying to emerge. Movement and spoken text weave together to create a shifting landscape where memory can be fragmented, humorous, tender and unsettling. The sea becomes both a physical and emotional space. A place of danger, possibility, transformation and release. Through the relationship between body, voice and water, Woman Above Water explores what it means to carry stories within the body and what might happen when we allow ourselves to let them surface. Artistic Intentions The work began with an interest in the relationship between women, the sea, memory and myth. I am interested in the sea as something that can hold multiple meanings: it can be calming and threatening, familiar and unknowable, a place of escape as well as a place of return. I want to explore how memory lives in the body. Rather than treating memory as something fixed or linear, the work allows it to shift, disappear, return and transform. Humour sits alongside more difficult moments, creating space for the complexity of personal experience. Movement and text are central to the work. I am interested in what happens when spoken language and physical movement tell the same story and when they contradict each other. The body can remember things that the voice cannot articulate, while words can give shape to experiences that movement alone cannot express. The project is intentionally open and process-led. The ideas are starting points rather than a fixed outcome, allowing the work to be shaped through experimentation, collaboration and the people involved in its development. The developing work is also interested in the sensory qualities of water, touch and movement, and in creating a performance experience that can move between intimacy, humour and transformation. |
Image credits: Spectrum Photography Dundee
Collaborators
Funders & Supporters Woman Above Water has been supported by:
Development & Presentation Woman Above Water was developed through the Rep Stripped Festival 2026, a festival of new work presented by Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre. The festival provides artists with the opportunity to share early-stage ideas with audiences and gather feedback as work develops. The work was presented as part of Rep Stripped Festival at Dundee Rep in April 2026, as part of the festival's first programme to include dance. The project continues to develop beyond this initial sharing, with further exploration of its relationship between dance, text, myth, memory and the sea. |
