Below
By Elizabeth Kahn
3 June 2008
Below. The story of a curious girl who lives on a farm with her grandfather and other friends and employees. While working on the rice fields, she notices there is a pond of water. The water mesmerizes her, and as she gazes into its' movement and through its sparkle she sees something. She sees a pearl, and it captures her attention and holds it, till all of the workers leave the field and she is all alone. It tells her to come in, and she follows it. Into the water, she first sees crabs, netting from the ocean, starfish, and the most colorful reflections and fish she has ever seen before. She is in shock of this beautiful world that has been hidden in front of her own eyes. The pearl and the girl soon form a trust with one another, and so the pearl leads her below the surface, into her own territory. She shows her all the different types of fishes in the fishbowl: blue fish, green fish, clown fish, angel fish, beta fish, and shrimps. The girl sees the fast fish that move quickly around them, as if she wasn't there. She inspects the coral reefs, that extend from the floor all the way to the surface of the ocean. And she gets sucked into the current, where she finds her place without the pearl. However, this new world the girl has entered is not all fun and games, she learns, like her own world, there is suffering, temptation, and death here. The dying fish sways around the girl, as if she was watching her, as if she knew her somehow, as if she cared for her. The girl sees the evil eels that want to trick her into coming with them, however, the pearl shows her she can not give into they're temptation, she must stay with her or go back home. But does she really want to go back home? Does she want to stay with her new friends in her magical underwater world? This is a hard decision for any young child to make, but with the help and courage from the dying fish, she returns back home. Only under one condition, she needs the dying fish to get her out of this place, so the dying fish risks her life to save the girl and bring her back home where she truly belongs. When she reaches her old home, she notices that the fishes who danced around her look very familiar to the people who work on the rice field with her. She also notices that the dying fish looks and walks like her grandfather. The girl realizes that there is no place like home. This was my high school dance concert story created by my dance teacher, Ms. Silke. With inspiration from "McElligot's Pool" by Dr. Seuss, she came up with this "Wizard of Oz" like story to create the most colorful, visually breath taking world of all different types of sea creatures. From crabs, seaweed, sharks, and sea horses we, as students, had to make these characters real and look like them too. With cases full of professional stage make up, we morphed into our desired fish, whether it was a kissing fish, to a clown fish, we had the make up to play the part. As a student in this modern dance performance, I was inspired by all the unique eyelashes and make up, I decided to photograph my fellow peers and capture the true meaning behind each of their characters. Hopefully, when you look at these pictures, you can imagine them as fish, just like I have.
