The Iowa River is a focal point of Iowa City and the university. It runs through campus, dividing east from west. While we keep our noses buried in books in the English-Philosophy building, thousands of gallons of its waters flow quietly past the building each minute.

Earlier this year the Meandering River project, a collaboration of research, writing and dance performances , brought together academics and artists from across campus to engage the Iowa City community to expand and challenge perceptions of the river.

Professor Eric Gidal from the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences worked on the project, alongside six other faculty members from across campus including Elizabeth McTernan-School of Art, Art History, and Design; Stephanie Miracle-Department of Dance; Heather Parrish-School of Art, Art History, and Design; and Jenna Supp-Montgomerie-Department of Religious Studies and Communications Studies, all of whom co-directed the project’s live events. David Cwiertny-Department of Chemistry and the College of Engineering and Larry Weber-College of Engineering also participated as collaborators on the project. 

The aim of Meandering River was to highlight the waterway’s importance to the city, its environmental history, and how it has been shaped, channeled and impacted by pollution. Research for the project began in fall 2024, when the group met every Friday morning to walk different stretches of the waterway. They discussed their observations and shared texts, research and historical documents related to the river. Halfway through the academic year, with the change of the seasons, the group began to develop a performance that would explore the diverse perceptions of the Iowa River — from its significance to the indigenous Ioway tribe, to the current use of its floodplain for many of the university’s campus buildings. 

Gidal contributed research and a collection of readings—some specific to the Iowa River, others about floods, floodplains and watersheds—to the group. The script, which he co-authored with Supp-Montgomerie, was heavily influenced by readings from different disciplines, including hydrology, biology, and civil engineering.

The first live performance was held in May 2025, with a second in September, as part of the Hancher Auditorium’s Infinite Dream festival. Both of the free events were highly popular and booked out within hours.

For the performance, dozens of audience members gathered at the Lagoon Shelter House on the Iowa River, where they were given silent disco headphones. The event was led by Gidal and Supp-Montgomerie, who narrated a live guided walking tour based on their script. The essay was accompanied by sonified water quality data from sensors along the Iowa River, which translated nitrate levels into choral voices. Dancers dotted along the river banks were choreographed to create a sense of the expanse of the river’s floodplain, and represent the movement of its waters.

The tour ended at the Park Road bridge, before the audience moved into the restored prairie at City Park for the second part of the event. Participants were given “Meandering Kits”— booklets of printed materials including writing prompts, with which they could engage with on their way back to the starting point, at the Lagoon Shelter House.

For Gidal, the performance was incredibly rewarding. “It felt like a teaching moment. I was pointing things out to the audience and reading passages from the essay, but it felt as much like an act of sharing," he said. "There were moments of silence, where I could just take in the pleasure of the day and the pleasure of the dance. It was a gift. The shows were free because all this work was supported by a number of grants. In that it felt like an act of giving, and it felt very satisfying, kind of a delight.”

The project was supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Iowa Arts Council, which exist within the Iowa Economic Development Authority. 

“Meandering River was very much an on-campus project, but part of what we imagined, and may still unfold as we think about next steps, is to use it as a kind of proof of concept, or prototype to do more community-engaged work outside of Iowa City and Johnson County,” Gidal says.

Meandering River is just one of a number of interdisciplinary projects examining the state’s waterways Gidal has worked on. His work on the Blue-Green Action Project (Blue GAP) project has also seen him collaborate across fields to examine the impact of nitrate pollution on the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

“Collaboration helps me to appreciate the value of literature and literary studies, because its power is so clearly evident when I'm working with people in other disciplines and the wider community," Gidal says. "I think collaboration opens up all sorts of possibilities that still draw very much on our knowledge, skills and talents as writers and scholars, but it puts them in dialogue with other people towards public and community-based projects. I've found it very rewarding, and also, I hope, a kind of encouragement to others to explore analogous possibilities.”