Toggle Side Panel
Close search

Jana Kopelent Rehak: Eco Dance and Meditations

My drawings and photographs capture the dancing shadows of the human body as itvmoves to the sound of the water against the rocks. Through my camera, I focus on the
broken shadows falling over the stones, fragmented as they disappear into the darkness of the cracks between them. When I draw, my hand layers colors inspired by what my geology friends call the “ocean crust.”

My “camera eye” captures the sky reflected on the water’s surface in shades of blue and gray. In stillness, I sit beside the flowing water over the rocks that have tumbled into the stream. I read the poetry written in the eco-language of light as it dances across the water and settles into the golden-brown bottom of the stream, where it meets the ocean crust. In this quiet space, I sketch the shadows imprinted on the rocks or those that have fallen into the darkness between them. This eco-calligraphy of light and shadow allows me to experience being one with the softness of the water and the stillness of the rocks.
As I surrender in the space between the Earth and the Sky, I feel a deep connection to the Universe. This connection manifests in the movement etched into the rocks, or in the dance and stillness I experience when I release all that I have carried from past days, accompanied by the sound of running waters.
In my aging female body, I sense how my life evolves in a complete circle. Growing up in southwestern Czech Republic, in the Šumava mountains, the fields and forests surrounding my hometown of Sušice were my sensory playground. On warm summer days, I would swim in the cold, clear waters of the Otava River, which flows down from the mountains. In that childhood river, I first saw and captured fleeting images of light dancing on its surface, and I discovered the stillness found in the golden-brown depths below.
My photographs and drawings serve as visual expressions that link my past to the present. In the Stony Run stream, whether in motion or stillness, I discovered familiar sensory memories—the scent of wet earth and decaying leaves, and the light dancing on the running water while also reflecting the sky. My artistic process reflects how my sensory experiences have come full circle across time and space.

Dr. Jana Kopelent-Rehak, cultural anthropologist, artist, and filmmaker, is currently a faculty member in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at Johns Hopkins University and the Anthropology Department at the University of Maryland. The eco-phenomenological perspective unites her artwork and anthropological research. The eco-phenomenological perspective unites her artwork and anthropological research. Her artwork, lyrical or documentary inspired by the environment, explores human belonging to places and engagement with natural elements such as water, grasses, rock, and trees. Her research embraces a range of issues such as social ecology, environment, health and climate, social inequality, and political life. Her most recent work in environmental anthropology resulted in the book We Live in the Water (JHU Press 2024), which examines climate, aging, and changing socioecology on Smith Island in Maryland. In addition to her book, she made an ethnographic film Family Frames (2019) Her urban anthropology work is based on an engagement with communities in Baltimore, addressing urban sociology. In the Czech Republic, she worked with ecological refugees from Chernobyl, and published a book, Recovering Face (Rehak2012), about Czech Political Prisoners, addressing social processes in post-socialist Central Eastern Europe, followed by the co-collaborative publication The Politics of Joking (Kopelent-Rehak and Trnka 2019) is an original contribution to an anthropological study of humor in political life. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/aeer/article/view/2010

Report

Harassment or bullying behavior
Contains mature or sensitive content
Contains misleading or false information
Contains abusive or derogatory content
Contains spam, fake content or potential malware

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

  • See blocked member's posts
  • Mention this member in posts
  • Invite this member to groups
  • Message this member

Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

Report

You have already reported this .
Enable Notifications OK No thanks