Sun Salutations is a play on the body as a soft vessel of elemental mantras continuously pumped through us. To acknowledge the changing environments within and outside ourselves, the projection is a dancer, moving with a hula hoop symbolic of the paradoxical relationship of self, collective and ancestral continuum.
A yogic sequence of Suryanamaskar (sun salutation) embodys a hula hoop dancing with with the figure, reflective of devotion to the sun in humble reverence to it; playing with the rising and setting pathways laminated across the sky suggesting cycles of death and rebirth.
The dance reframes the yogic benefits of ‘body-building’ which helps to cultivate a strong mind, body and soul, as collective and therefore anti-colonial subverting its long legacy of colonialism and Brahminisation that seeks to isolate and individualise.
The sequence is projected in a body of water to encapsulate it like a lucid dream submerged, unfolding in another state and time. The viewer is invited to stare into the water, a practice deeply tied to self reflection.
The figure is placed in a dark sky, rendered gold like a pulsating seed illustrating within each person lies a unique essence, akin to the inherent value and resilience found in gold, a source of strength and connection to something larger, as if its born from this fire that is deep inside, similar to the fire deep inside the earth.
Sounds of a Bijamantra - translated as seed syllable/mantra - surround the sequence mixed with field recordings of elemental sounds collected in London, akin to each element in the song.
