A speculation in song, sound, and story, Carried Away: Beyond a Rooted Condition is a performance written and choreographed for the Royal Botanical Garden of Córdoba. The performance premiered on June 5, 2022, as part of “Pasaje del agua | The Journeying Stream”—a program of performances, meditation, music, and conversations convened jointly by TBA21 and TBA21–Academy. 

Performed and conceived by Madison Bycroft, Léo Landon Barret, and Nana (Anaïs) Pinay, Carried Away: Beyond a Rooted Condition departs from nomenclatures, classifications, and histories preserved in greenhouses and moves with the meanders of the Guadalquivir river, which runs along the herbariums. In this sense the work is a movement from one place to another, but the way is not straight: it meanders, eddies, detours, and gets stuck in the reed swamps before a story swells and pushes it forward. Is a movement still “forwards” if there is no goal, no destination in mind? With Latin names sinking into the mud, particular, edged, theatrical surfaces get anchored to their spot and gather grass, shrubs, and algae, eventually eroding too. Who is here? An introduced species? Native and exotic? How do we allow you your illegibility beside the opaque waters of the Guadalquivir river?