The underwater world is rich with sounds. Dolphins whistle, porpoises orientate themselves by clicking and fishes talk while drumming, growling and chirping. However, natural life is not alone. The sounds of ships, sonars, explosives and fishing trawlers are ear-shattering, disrupting the harmony of the natural soundscape. The Cusk Collective brings the underwater world to the stage in all its beauty and vulnerability in the docu-music theater Ear to Sea.

Some people think fishes are silent creatures … But in reality, they have more ways of talking than humans do with our voices! Fishes rub their fins together, click and clack with their mouths, whistle through their bellies, vibrate their swim bladders, and … even talk with farts. So it is anything but quiet underwater, but as if that were not enough, we humans add to it with screeching sonars, grinding ship propellers, snapping trawl nets and banging engines. Can those underwater people still understand each other in all that noise? In a unique show that combines science, music and performance, the Cusk Collective figures out how it all works.

The earth, our living soil – the tiny surface layer of our globe – is what all earthly life depends on. It is the basis of our food production system and of biodiversity, it literally roots our living world, it produces clean water, stores carbon and regulates the climate. The worms, fungi, mites, springtails, and other life forms which live in the dark are essential for the survival of life above the ground, despite how unknown their world is to us. In this project, we want to connect to this lively darkness by listening to the sounds of the soil. The music inspired by these sounds, will be the fertile soil for a new performance.