SALT

SALT is a new climate-responsive performance from Arbonauts – artist duo Helen Galliano and Dimitri Launder. Bringing their distinct process of working intensively with communities through movement and site, SALT is a live event created for and performed in the water of a tidal pool on Canvey Island. 

In the shadow of a sea wall, alongside the rhythm of daily tides, SALT is performed by a dynamic, intergenerational group of over 20 performers including local open-water swimmers who took part in SILT (2021) and students from BA Physical Theatre course at East 15 Acting School. The audience will be immersed and submerged in an evocative multi-speaker soundscape made from sounds gathered in and along the Estuary, played live during the performance. The SALT creative team is made up of directors Helen Galliano and Dimitri Launder, choreographers and performers Becky Namgauds and Aris Papadopoulos and sound artist Lee Berwick.

SALT is the second, standalone, chapter to Arbonauts’ site-specific commission SILT, created for a tidal pool in Shoeburyness for Estuary 2021. SILT re-imagined how humans might evolve beyond an impending climate disaster with a community of people who dwell in water, working with local open-water swimmers. Participants said about the creative process: 

“This experience has helped my confidence to soar, given me faith in my body’s ability to move and be strong.”

“If a group of total strangers comes together and is guided with such kindness, openness and generosity, something truly amazing can happen. SILT has reminded me of community in its purest form.”

“I learnt about how collaborative performance art is made. I learnt about soundscapes, about tidal pools, silt, the ocean and the estuary. I learnt that age means nothing.”

Image: SILT at Estuary 2021. Photo: Nina Photography.