Marya Stark's short film Underground River is a multimedia work that weaves together music, choreography, visual art, and ceremonial movement to reconnect viewers with ancestral wisdom about water and the hidden rivers of consciousness that link all living beings. Through a cast of dancers and performers in carefully crafted costumes and vessels, the film invites audiences to remember their interdependence with water and the Earth, suggesting that reconnection with these waters is essential to our collective healing.
What Is the Underground River as a Concept?
The Underground River functions on multiple levels in Stark's work. Literally, underground rivers—aquifers and subterranean waterways—sustain ecosystems and human communities invisibly, flowing beneath the surface where we cannot see them. Metaphorically and spiritually, the Underground River represents the hidden currents of life force, consciousness, and ancestral memory that connect all beings. In the final statement of the film's description, Stark invokes this dual meaning: "May all beings reconnect with the ancestral wisdom of the waters and remember the Underground River that connects us all." This suggests that water is not merely a physical resource but a carrier of ancestral knowledge—a medium through which generations communicate and through which all life remains bound together.
How Does the Film Use Music and Sound?
The musical foundation of Underground River comes from an album of the same name, co-composed and arranged by Marya Stark and Daniel Berkman. Rather than using pre-existing compositions, Stark created original music specifically to serve the film's vision. This approach ensures that every sonic element reinforces the film's core message about ancestral connection and water wisdom. The act of "singing the rivers" mentioned in the video description suggests that sound itself becomes a form of invocation—a way of calling forth the presence and power of water through voice and music. By offering listeners the chance to "sing the rivers" alongside the film, Stark extends the experience beyond passive viewing into participatory ceremony, where audiences become co-creators in the act of remembering and honoring water.
What Role Does Choreography Play in the Narrative?
Jade Sanchez served as creative director, choreographer, and editor, indicating that movement is central to how the film communicates its message. In works exploring ancestral wisdom and embodied knowledge, choreography becomes a language that speaks directly to the body rather than the intellect. Dancers and performers move through the film as vessels or channels for ancestral memory, their bodies enacting the flow and power of water in human form. The careful attention to costume design—credited to three separate designers (Silk & Earth, Royal Peasantry, and Melodia Designs)—suggests that the visual presentation of the performers' bodies is deliberate and symbolic. Costumes can represent different aspects of water wisdom, different ancestral lineages, or different states of consciousness or embodiment.
How Do Visual Elements Support the Water Narrative?
The film employs multiple visual artists working in distinct mediums. Summit Jaffe's cinematography captures the performers and landscapes, Jade Sanchez created tapestries as part of the set design, and Reida Sage sculpted vessels that appear in the film. These vessels—functional or symbolic containers—may serve as metaphors for human bodies as vessels for ancestral wisdom, or for the ways water itself is contained, held, and transformed. The production was filmed at specific locations (The Landing and Lake Eden Event Center), suggesting that the actual geography and relationship to water informed the film's creation. Filming at a lake location deepens the film's embodied connection to actual water—the Underground River becomes not merely symbolic but rooted in real places where water flows and sustains life.
Who Are the Performers and What Do They Represent?
The film features a large ensemble cast, including Marya Stark herself alongside dancers and performers of diverse names and backgrounds. This casting choice appears intentional, suggesting that the work honors multiple cultural traditions and lineages of water wisdom. The variety of names represented in the credits indicates performers from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, which aligns with the film's final blessing: "May all beings reconnect with the ancestral wisdom of the waters." By bringing together a diverse ensemble, the film suggests that water wisdom is not the property of any single tradition but belongs to all peoples and all ancestors. Each performer may embody different aspects of this universal yet particular knowledge—different ways that different cultures have understood, honored, and lived in relationship with water.
What Is the Relationship Between Performance and Ritual?
The language surrounding the film—the emphasis on "singing the rivers," the blessing at the end, the ceremonial quality of the costumes and movements—suggests that Underground River functions as a ritual work, not merely entertainment or art viewing. Ritual, in spiritual traditions, is a structured action intended to create real shifts in consciousness, community, and relationship. By presenting the film as an invitation to "sing the rivers with me," Stark positions viewers not as passive observers but as participants in an act of remembrance. The film itself may be understood as a performance of ritual that viewers are invited to join, whether by watching, singing along with the music, or incorporating the film's themes into their own practices of honoring water and Earth.
Where Do Ancestral Wisdom and Contemporary Environmentalism Meet?
The film's focus on reconnecting with "ancestral wisdom of the waters" emerges from both spiritual and ecological urgency. Ancestral cultures in many parts of the world held sophisticated understandings of water cycles, watershed health, and humanity's dependence on freshwater systems. These were not merely practical knowledges but embedded in spiritual and ceremonial life—water was understood as sacred, alive, and worthy of gratitude and respect. In contemporary contexts where water systems face pollution, depletion, and exploitation, returning to ancestral frameworks offers both spiritual and practical wisdom. The concept of the Underground River—those hidden aquifers and subterranean flows—directly names the waters that many contemporary communities depend on without seeing them. Reconnecting with ancestral wisdom of water becomes a way of honoring those waters' existence and power, and potentially shifting human behavior toward greater reciprocity and care.
How Does the Film Invite Ongoing Engagement?
Beyond the short film itself, Stark offers multiple entry points for deeper engagement. The album Underground River can be heard in full through music streaming platforms. The film mentions offerings to "sing the rivers with me," suggesting workshops, ceremonies, or group experiences where people can embody the film's teachings through participation. Marya Stark's website and the Earthbased Media production company provide additional resources. This multi-platform approach recognizes that different people engage with ancestral wisdom and artistic vision in different ways—some through visual media, some through music, some through movement and voice, some through community ritual. By offering multiple pathways, Stark makes the Underground River accessible to a broader range of people and learning styles.
Where to Go From Here
To deepen your engagement with Underground River and the themes it explores, begin by watching the film fully and noticing which images, movements, or musical moments resonate most deeply. Listen to the album in its entirety, perhaps while in proximity to water—a river, lake, ocean, or even rain. Research the ancestral relationships your own lineage held with water; if this history is unfamiliar, seek out indigenous or traditional teachings from the lands where you live or where your ancestors originated. Consider where your own water comes from—trace the rivers, aquifers, and watersheds that sustain you. If you feel called, seek out opportunities to sing or participate in water ceremonies in your community. Reflect on the concept of the Underground River as metaphor: what hidden currents of ancestral memory, consciousness, or connection do you sense moving beneath the surface of your own life? How might deepening your relationship with water—literal, ceremonial, and metaphorical—shift your sense of belonging to the Earth and to the web of all beings?
