"Underground River" is a short film that uses water as a central metaphor for ancestral connection and wisdom. Through choreographed movement, original music, and visual storytelling, the film—directed by Earthbased Media and starring multiple dancers—invites viewers into a meditation on how rivers, both literal and symbolic, connect human consciousness across time and geography. The first part, "Water Into Water," begins this journey by establishing water as a living teacher and ancestral bridge.
What Is the Underground River?
The Underground River is both a literal and metaphorical concept explored in this short film. At its core, the work uses water—rivers, streams, and the hidden waterways beneath the earth—as a vehicle for understanding ancestral wisdom and interconnection. Rather than presenting information didactically, the film employs performance art, choreography, and music composition to engage viewers in embodied experience. The project is a collaboration between Marya Stark (executive producer, artist, and composer), Daniel Berkman (co-composer), and Earthbased Media (production and direction), with creative direction and choreography by Jade Sanchez. The ensemble cast of 15 performers brings the concept to life through movement and presence.
How Does Water Serve as an Ancestral Teacher?
In many indigenous and earth-based wisdom traditions, water is understood not merely as a physical resource but as a living repository of memory and knowledge. The Underground River film operates within this framework, suggesting that water carries information—spiritual, ancestral, and ecological—across time. By depicting water through human movement and artistic expression, the work invites viewers to shift their ordinary perception of rivers from utilitarian objects to conscious entities with their own agency and teaching capacity. The closing intention stated in the film's description—"May all beings reconnect with the ancestral wisdom of the waters"—makes explicit that this work is an invitation to remember a connection that exists within and beneath contemporary consciousness.
What Role Does Movement Play in Revealing Water's Nature?
Choreography functions in this work as a primary language for understanding water. Rather than explaining water symbolically, the dancers embody its qualities: fluidity, responsiveness, continuity, and inevitability. Through coordinated and solo movement sequences, the film shows water not as static but as dynamic—constantly moving, changing form, connecting disparate spaces. The involvement of professional choreographer and creative director Jade Sanchez ensures that every gesture carries intentional meaning, transforming dance into a form of knowledge transmission. This approach acknowledges that some truths about water and interconnection are best understood through the body and senses rather than through conceptual explanation.
Why Focus on Underground Rivers Specifically?
Underground rivers exist beyond ordinary sight. They flow beneath soil and stone, hidden yet essential—supplying aquifers, nourishing ecosystems, and connecting distant geographical regions through invisible networks. As a metaphor, the underground river represents dimensions of ancestral connection and consciousness that exist beyond surface awareness. Modern life, particularly in industrial and technological cultures, often severs people from awareness of these deeper, sustaining currents. By centering the underground rather than famous, visible rivers, the film suggests that the most important connections are often those we cannot see—yet upon which all life depends. This mirrors many contemplative traditions that emphasize hidden or subtle dimensions of reality as more fundamental than the obvious.
What Is the Significance of "Water Into Water"?
The subtitle of this first part, "Water Into Water," suggests a state of non-distinction or merging. In mystical and philosophical traditions, this phrase evokes the dissolution of individual boundary into collective or universal identity. Water flowing into water loses distinction—separate streams merge into one current. As a title for the opening movement of the film, this phrase establishes the fundamental teaching: that separation is illusion, and that all beings participate in a continuous flow of ancestral memory and connection. It is a poetic way of stating that the viewer, too, is "water into water"—neither separate from nor exempt from the currents that move through all existence.
How Does the Music Composition Support the Visual Narrative?
The original album "Underground River" by Marya Stark and Daniel Berkman was composed specifically to accompany and amplify the film's visual language. Music in this context serves not as background but as a dimensional partner to choreography and cinematography. The composition draws on earth-based and ancestral sonic traditions, creating a soundscape that listeners can access both through the film and as a standalone listening experience. This dual accessibility—as film score and as album—extends the work's reach and allows the teaching to permeate different modes of engagement. Those who listen to the music separately continue to receive the film's intention, as the composition carries the archetypal energy of flowing water and ancestral memory into auditory consciousness.
What Tradition Does This Work Emerge From?
The Underground River represents a contemporary earth-based artistic practice that honors indigenous and pre-industrial wisdom about water and land. The cast, production team, and institutional support (including acknowledgment of "The Landing" and various earth-based organizations) indicate a commitment to decolonized and community-grounded artistic practice. Rather than extracting indigenous knowledge for commercial consumption, the project appears to work within and alongside earth-based communities and practitioners. The ensemble approach—featuring multiple artists, dancers, and creators—mirrors a non-hierarchical, collective consciousness consistent with many traditional and contemporary earth-based movements. This positions the film not as a product consumed passively but as a ritual or ceremonial work designed to shift awareness.
Where to Go From Here
For those drawn to this work, several pathways deepen engagement. First, watch the complete film (available in its entirety at the linked YouTube address) to experience the full narrative arc. Second, listen to the "Underground River" album by Marya Stark and Daniel Berkman as a standalone practice—allowing the music to become a personal anchor for reconnection with water wisdom. Third, explore Marya Stark's broader body of work through her website (marya-stark.com) and Earthbased Media productions, which likely continue these themes of ancestral connection and earth-based consciousness. Finally, consider this film an invitation to your own practice: spending time near rivers or water sources, observing their movement, and allowing the body to respond with its own fluidity. The Underground River teaches not through explanation but through resonance—and each viewer becomes a vessel through which that teaching flows.
