Play Us A River is a recurring improvisation practice space – a pool of play to dip in to and remind your body just how alive you are and can feel with other people. The space is guided by the play of rivers moving through our landscapes -their banks, meanders, currents, movement, stillness.

Play Us A River – Deerness Devotions

This edition of Play Us A River ran from October to December 2024, with generous support from Cultivate Commissions and Into the Light Partnership

Invitation – “From Tow Law to the Browney, the Deerness river flows, shifts, persists. It carves the landscape and carries the flora and fauna amongst which we play out our lives. Have you ever wondered about your relationship with your local river and its relation to you, to who you are, to where you live, to how you perceive and move? Come and explore what movements our own Deerness River can carry us into through movement, sound, rhythm, tiny dances, sensory attention, imagination and many personal histories.”

Our first session the river bank came in to the hall and we explored different materials using our different senses, listening, responding, remembering the ease of play.

We had 8 indoor workshops and 2 outdoor workshops. The first outdoor session we had snow and heavy mist.

Being together, listening and playing in these conditions was a first for many of us and very memorable. We wrote these poems once back in the warm on the snow day.

Play Us A River – solo research as ritual

During Deerness Devotions each week I visited different spots along the river. I spent one balmy october morning near Flass Hall, first tracing the edges of the space and then letting my own edges dissolve over and over through encounters with willow and river. Matt, a local filmmaker, came to join me for the last part of the morning and filmed this moment of being lowered by willow in to the river.