What happens when women wait?

On the pier, between waves and horizon, between hope and fear?

A woman stands on the jetty. Her gaze is fixed on the sea. Her hands smell of fish and salt. She waits. For a ship, for news, for change. Her body knows this tension – between land and water, between routine and longing.

Coastal Souls – Mermaid Echoes is a journey through three European coasts. From the icy Barents Sea in Norway to the mythical islands of Greece to the windswept beaches of the Spanish Basque Country. Everywhere the same gestures of waiting. Everywhere women whose identities are inextricably interwoven with the sea.

On stage, images emerge from real stories: the sardine worker who has been heading fish since she was seven years old – her hands dance this movement, repetitive, powerful, full of suppressed dignity. The young mother who commutes daily to the distant city to give her children a life between nature and culture – her body driven, exhausted, determined. The captain’s wife who accompanies her husband on his travels – her movements fluid, restless, never really arriving. And the one who reluctantly repeats her mother’s life: alone with the children while he is at sea for five months. Her dance between duty and rebellion.

Three rooms, two seasons

The stage transforms: the cramped, dark living space – where bodies breathe heavily, where the smell of fish and work never disappears. The jetties – thresholds between departure and arrival, where women linger, stare, wait. The beach – where bodies open up, where horizons become visible, where dreams are possible.

And then the seasons: the monochrome, icy winter – people isolated in their homes, movements frozen, turned inward. And the hot, colourful summer – life outside, bodies light and dancing, laughter on the beach.

Cinematic projections of water, coastal landscapes and historical footage allow living dancers to interact with mythological and historical female figures. Today’s sardine worker encounters Aphrodite. The young mother meets Bouboulina, the freedom fighter. The captain’s wife dances with sirens.

Poetry meets reality

I don’t want a picturesque portrayal of coastal life. Nor do I want documentary theatre that re-enacts interviews. I am looking for something else: a poetic condensation of real life stories. Movement arises from the physical and emotional state of the characters – exhaustion becomes dance, waiting becomes poetry, routine becomes ritual.

There is hardship: the world of work, routine, exploitation. Hands that never rest. Bodies shaped by the sea. Danger, loss, loneliness. The sea takes back what it has given.

But there is also laughter, celebrations, solidarity. Women fighting together – for pensions, for recognition, for their dignity. Dancing on the beach on hot summer evenings. The intense joie de vivre that only those who encounter the sea every day know.

The lives of women in coastal regions are like waves – dynamic, adaptable, shaped by external forces, but never broken.

Jörg Lensing’s atmospheric sound design – icy cold, summer rustling, seagull cries, winter silence – and Nikos Salmouris’ cinematic stage sets create a space between documentary and dream, between reality and myth.

***

I invite you to travel with us to the coast. Feel the salt-encrusted hands, the weary shoulders, the longing glances at the sea. But also the strength, the defiance, the ability to find beauty in a life that is often brutal.

See how women wait. And discover the whole world in their waiting.

Jacqueline Fischer

Düsseldorf, November 2025