Sudden Depth

BACKGROUND: 'Sudden Depth' is a collaborative text authored by 10 artists, free divers and academics including Mick Douglas. Its style and form are referred to as 'a polyvocal assembly of texts and images', reflecting the fluid exchange between individual practices that came together as the Deep Anatomy cluster at PSi (Performance Studies international) Fluid States on Long Island, The Bahamas in 2015. The cluster used the unique geography of Long Island and the structure of a free diving competition to provoke intersections between the local community, free divers and performances studies academics. The resulting collaborative text is a device that 'performs' the integrated processes and voices of the contributors. CONTRIBUTION: 'Sudden Depth' reflects the cross-disciplinary workings of a group of performers, thinkers and free divers. The text integrates poetic prose, analysis and critical reflection, flowing from one voice to another, with overlaps from different perspectives; this reflects the fluid and interchangeable nature of the aesthetic and athletic practices involved. The text allows the reader to experience the complexity of the material produced without favouring a critical, analytical voice over the embodied and performative 're-conjurings' of the event that other modes of writing provide. 'Sudden Depth' contributes novel ideas around cross-disciplinary dialogues, the archiving of live engagement and performance, and the performativity of text. It demonstrates the potential for accessing, publishing and archiving performative content that go beyond traditional text-centric models of research. SIGNIFICANCE: The significance of the article is evidenced by its inclusion in the journal 'Global Performance Studies' (ISSN: 2574-027X), published PSi, the peak international body for performance studies. GPS is a peer reviewed, online, interdisciplinary academic journal, aiming to expand published perspectives on performance and performance studies.