Human dancer and codariocalyx motorus plant
Performance and vídeo
Described in detail in Charles Darwin's 1880 "The Power of Movement in Plants", Codariocalyx motorius (or Desmodium gyrans), also known as the 'dancing plant', is a tropical Asian shrub, one of a few plants capable of rapid movements which can be seen by the human eyes. The movements of the plant are said to depend on various elements such as the position of the light, and the surroundings sounds and air movements in the space where the plant is located.
The video-performance 'Symbiosis' puts a human dancer and a Codariocalyx motorius plant together in the same room, giving to the dancer the single instruction to reproduce with her own body the movement of the plant. From here starts a kind of infinite mutual choregraphic cycle between the dancer and the plant: each movement the dancer makes is modifying the light, vibrations and atmosphere of the room, thereby influencing in return the movements of plant that the dancer then tries to mimic. Doing so, the work operates as an attempt to explore the social and organical intersubjectivity relations between the vegetal world and the human existence.