WHERE ONCE THERE WAS WATER
Originally commissioned as a live work for The Rosin Box Project, a San Diego-based contemporary ballet company dedicated to new creation and artist-driven collaboration, Where Once There Was Water was later reimagined for film in the vast landscape of the Anza-Borrego Desert.
Inspired by the geological history of a landscape that once existed beneath water, the work considers transformation across immense spans of time. Bodies become traces of an evolving terrain, evoking tectonic shifts, ancient oceans, rising mountains, and the continual cycles of destruction and renewal that shape the natural world.
Moving the work from stage to landscape allowed the choreography to enter into direct conversation with the environment that inspired it, transforming the original live performance into a cinematic meditation on bodies, memory, and geological time.
Direction + Choreography: Mike Tyus & Luca Francesco Renzi
Director of Photography + Editing: Mike Tyus
Steadicam: Doso Lazo
2nd Camera: Luca Francesco Renzi
1st AC: Taylor Stewart
Music: Amyra Leon
Commissioned by: The Rosin Box Project, San Diego