Maresa Von Stockert grew up near Lake Constance in Germany.
She used to sit for hours on its banks, listening to the waves meet the shore.
As a child – she says via email from Bethune in France where her dance theatre company has been performing – she would make weird fantasy creatures from the algae that washed ashore.
“I have always been fascinated by water,” she writes.
“I am interested in our ambiguous relationship with water: we drink it, it is part of our bodies, we fill it in billions of plastic bottles that end up polluting our rivers and seas.
“We bathe in it, we use it for recreation, and we live with the thought that future generations may drown in it if water levels keep rising.
“In short: we love it; we need it; we fear it.”
The mixed meanings will flow through Tilted Production’s first promenade piece and debut site-specific work made for the outdoors, SeaSaw.
Director von Stockert says the piece, first created for the seafront in Cromer, Norfolk, looks at the relationship between humans and water.
It plays with the images water evokes, such as childhood memories of waterside holidays and provokes thoughts on current environmental issues.
A new version for Brighton invites the audience to walk along the seafront to encounter vignettes of contemporary dance, performance art and physical theatre.
“I have walked up and down Brighton seafront many a time to figure out the best location and route for the piece.
“Brighton seafront next to the Marina is a brilliant mixture of rough wasteland and beautiful pebble beach.
“I am looking forward to ‘moulding’ SeaSaw to this special location.”
Tilted’s previous productions – Masquerade, Trapped, Glacier, Beyond The Seven Seas – featured incredible dances with performers using props.
In Masquerade someone emerges from a giant head.
In Glacier, dancers slide about in oil like struggling birds.
The seven performers in SeaSaw use deckchairs, ice-floes and a mini aquarium with a dancer trapped inside.
“We see her movements through the water and glass as her body moulds itself to the aquarium.
“The water as well as the restrictive space of the aquarium walls inspired the movement material.
“I wanted to explore how the water and aquarium can distort, influence and reshape the dancer’s body. And how the dancer could make us focus on and experience the movement of the water.”
The props are symbolic as well as being integral to the dancers’ movement.
“Rather than looking at how a dancer can make an object move, I like to look at it the other way around: how the object can move the dancer.”
Dancers in duets and trios will perform to a soundtrack composed by Jeremy Cox.
Most of the music is inspired by or linked to the water theme.
Several tracks are written by Michel Redolfi, a French composer who makes and records sounds under water.
And fans of Nine Inch Nails and John Williams (Jaws) will recognise the composers’ work.
Seafront, Black Rock side of Brighton Marina, Sunday, May 20
Starts 11am and 3pm, free.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here