Swimming, Dancing examines audiovisual representations of the Yangtze (1934–present), from silent film to video art to the contemporary vlog. Used by poets and politicians alike for personal or ideological ends, the Yangtze has often been domesticated as a symbol. The river itself, part of a natural world that predates human habitation along its banks, defies such interpretations. Over the last century, it has been transformed beyond recognition by industrialisation and pollution. Inspired by the city symphonies of the 1920s, Swimming, Dancing pieces together a “river symphony”, evoking the images, sounds and contradictions that make up the river’s turbulent history, suggesting that, if the Yangtze represents anything, it is the mercurial relationship between humanity and nature.