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Fragmented is a short dance film depicting the process of coral bleaching. It explores the parallel journey of the stressed coral and the unpredictable recovery from bone stress injuries as a professional ballet dancer. Both journeys rely on time to recover to fully heal. Unless adequate time and the right conditions are given, a bone can eventually fully break. Ballet dancers have considerably full schedules, little recovery time and vitamin D deficiency is extremely common due to many hours of indoor training. This results in a higher risk of injury and prolonged recovery time (Wolman, 2012). 

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Corals which are ecosystems made from tiny animals called polyps (Attenborough, 2020, p.85), they have an essential relationship with symbiotic algae which provides nutrients to the polyps’ skeleton and is responsible for its vibrant colour (Attenborough, 2020, p.87). Coral reefs are massively affected by rising sea temperatures which are occurring because of climate change. They are already living in the upper end of their heat tolerance, therefore are severely stressed by these changes. They eject their symbiotic algae and this is what causes them to become bleached (Sheppard, 2015, p.92).

When the coral is bleached it is not dead, it is essentially in recovery. It can look rather beautiful and unless one is aware of the issue, one may not notice there is anything wrong. This also reminded me of how often ballet dancers harbour and carry injuries silently and the audience can frequently have no idea of the pain they are in.

If there is another mass bleaching event before the coral has had a chance to fully recover, it will die. It needs time, just like my foot injury needed time to heal. As a dancer facing injury or illness can be isolating and you feel like your career and life stands still while everyone around seems to be progressing.

But I, unlike the coral still have a choice to move, even if it is in a different way. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be immobile like the coral, to feel so stressed by the heat that the relationship between the algae, so necessary for life would be fragmented.  Much of my movement is inspired by this thought: ‘How can I move from a base of generally stationary position?’

I have been inspired by this video shared by the National Geographic of Coral bleaching happening in action. 

Despite mass bleaching events, the great barrier reef has shown incredible powers of recovery in the last few years (de Freitas, 2023) which brings a sense of hope. With supreme efforts towards a reduction in fossil fuels, there is still a chance that we can extend the space between the mass bleaching events and allow them time to recover. Coral reefs ‘benefit almost 500 million people and provide habitat for 25% of all marine species’ (The Nature conservancy, 2022), yet I am amazed by how few people have an awareness of this issue and the threat they are under. This film seeks to raise awareness of this issue.

The music was specially commissioned for the piece, composed by Natural Horn player Isaac Shieh, with natural underwater sounds accompanying it. The music is entitled Caprice No.1 – l’arpége (2024) and Shieh has created a piece inspired by the movement of the process of coral bleaching as seen in this video. This collaboration has been integral to the creation of the choreographic movement.

The development of this piece began whilst undertaking a fellowship with Climarts and it is currently in the final stages of creation.