Our Impact

During their performance, they asked for a water fountain in the Village. The performance consisted in taking the streets of the city by dancing with live music and marching with signs in their hands. Dancers took over the space from the market place to the roofs of boats at the shore. Invited spectators were stationed at a specific location, where the dance starts, and, of course, accidental viewers will glimpse parts of it from the market.

Created a nonprofit organization called “Rio Danza Comunitaria” which engages communities to take care of their own water resources. As a result, Global Water Dances expanded to other cities like Cuzco (2014) and Lambayeque (2015).

The Flint Youth Ballet has participated in community engagement events for over 25 years, but our current group had not yet had the opportunity but had requested it. Global Water Dances came at the perfect time for our curriculum as well as a chance for our students to communicate their anger, fear, and hope during the Flint Water Crisis. The Flint water crisis first started in 2014 when the drinking water source for the city of Flint, Michigan was changed from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the cheaper Flint River. Due to insufficient water treatment, lead leached from the lead water pipes into the drinking water, exposing over 100,000 residents. After a pair of scientific studies proved lead contamination was present in the water supply, a federal state of emergency was declared in January 2016 and Flint residents were instructed to use only bottled or filtered water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and bathing.

The greatest impact this event had was that students, ages 11-16, participated in critical and creative thinking around water issues. They discussed the roles water plays in their lives, the concerns that they had re: water, and created poetry and reflections, as well as movement. For many students, this was the first time they used art to engage in an activist way. I am hoping to continue to do the Global Water Dances, as well as the National, and use this as an example for how young people can be involved in activism and issues.
~ Nicole Perry

The dancers were members of the Nananom (The King’s) traditional troupe. The dance performance was choreographed to raise awareness about the adverse impacts of unsustainable mining practices, called galamsey. The ideologies reflected in the choreography and overall performances advocates a “Bottom-Up” approach and effective stakeholder engagement practices. The chief of Funko region and the regent of Akatenke spoke about the importance of the event and their efforts to stop Galamsey practices.
~ Emmanuel Brace

We raised awareness of the need for increased research on the effects of ingested environmental toxins and continued advocacy for clean water because research shows certain environmental exposures, for people with a genetic predisposition, increase risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. PCBs have been found in relatively high concentrations in the brains of people who had Parkinson’s disease. Our message is especially strong because our Global Water Dances performers are people with Parkinson’s disease.
~ Cynthia Pegado

Site Leader: Ursula Carrascal, Asociacion Cultural Minaq Ecodanza in partnership with Vida Instituto para la Proteccion del Medio Ambiente

This project included the implementation of an educational kit provided by Vida about the impact of the debris on the migratory birds during four workshops. They trained kids to use these kits and do a workshop with Ecodanza who is making a new dance based on this issue to be educational during the meetings, and they didt wo clean ups: one with kids in schools and one with the community on GWD day. and the performances and teachings in sessions will all ended up in an educational video.

Site Leader: Cibele Sastre

Environmental Partner: AGAPAN (Gaucho Association for Environmental Protection)

Since 2019, we have conducted environmental education on water issues with AGAPAN. AGAPAN is the first green non-governmental organization in Brazil. Together, we worked to stop the coal mining around the Guaiba River.

Brazil has one of the biggest groundwater reserves, however it is currently being sold privately. The Site Impact Fund allowed the collaboration of musicians, photographers, and videographers to produce our performance and dance film.

Site Leader: Rainy Emerson

The SIF award allowed us to do the event at all because I had no other funding to hire dancers and am committed to treating profession labor as such. The writings of Kamau Brathwaite gave me inspiration and motivation to connect with the water in a way that made the broad topic of water and environmentalism very personal. The commitment and talent of the dancers broad the work to life and the incredible enthusiasm and support of WIRRED really made our film screening a success and a joy. It was particularly nice because one of the films was created as a Capstone project by a recent graduate of the BFA in Dance I just co-created and it was wonderful to be able to bring her work to a new audience.