Remembering Water’s Way

2018

Remembering Water’s Way was an outdoor performance tour inviting reflection on how we respond to a changing planet. Through dance performance, audience engagement, and environmental art installation, the work reminds us that collective action can move us in directions that offer resilience and strength to ourselves, each other, and our communities.

About the Project

Remembering Water’s Way was the culmination of a year of research and art making with Dance Exchange and communities connected to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education as part of the LandLab residency. The artists led a series of animated walks on Schuylkill trails to connect participants to local ecology and reflect on the ways that water shapes our lives. These community-building experiences wove together performance, environmental art installation, explorations of scientific information, and opportunities for participants to be in conversation about concerns and questions about the Schuylkill River, local waterways, and the impacts of climate change on the region. 

Building on discoveries from How to Lose a Mountain and the tools and strategies of Moving Field Guide, Remembering Water’s Way explored performance not only as a way to learn about environmental and climate solutions but to actually put them into action. As part of this effort to weave together process and impact, Dance Exchange continued our collaboration with designer Zeke Leonard, this time working together to create large weavings called fascines made from sticks and native plants found in the immediate environment. These fascines were then rolled, bundled, and carried on performers’ shoulders as audiences followed them in and through the woods at the Schuylkill Center. By placing fascines in areas impacted by increased storm occurrences due to climate change, the performance and installation helped slow erosion while inviting performers and audience members alike to locate themselves in a larger story of collective action, resilience, and strength. 

“Dance Exchange has allowed me to be part of the creation of spaces where people can interface with environmental issues in non-traditional ways. Spaces where people can ask questions and search for answers in community, not just by talking but by moving as well. It’s a powerful combination”.

–Dr. Jamē McCray
Interdisciplinary Ecologist and Remembering Water’s Way collaborator

Connect

Bring a Dance Exchange performance residency to your organization or community.

Join Cassie’s Climate Circle to support Dance Exchange’s work at the intersection of artmaking and climate.

Learn about the Moving Field Guide program that was part of this project. 

Person pours water from what appears to be a hand-carved bowl into another person's cupped hands in a forest setting. Group of people wearing colorful clothing stand in a line in the blurred background.

Project Collaborators

Artistic Direction 
Cassie Meador

Development and Performing Ensemble
Christina Catanese, Performer and Project Curator in her former role as the Director of Environment Art at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education
Elizabeth Johnson Levine, former Associate Artistic Director at Dance Exchange and Performer
Zeke Leonard, Environmental Designer and Performer
Marcie Mamura, Performer
Sarah Marks Mininsohn, Performer
Talia Mason, Performer
Dr. Jamē McCray, Interdisciplinary Ecologist and Performer
Kelly Mitchell, Performer

Learn More

Child smiles as they look down at a hand-carved bowl next to two adults that crouch and reach down, responding to the child's interest.
Two people wearing colorful earthtones crouch down and look at a bundle of sticks laid out on a grassy field before them with a forest of trees in the distant background.
Group of about 20 people stand in a wide circle gazing at a tall trellis structure displaying an artful hand-woven sheet of sticks.
Person talks as others listen attentively, one holding a tall walking stick next to a tall display of woven sticks.
View through a display of sticks woven together with red thread showing a group of people in the blurred background through the slits.
Senior person and child standing next to one another reaching their hands forward as if to make an offering in an outdoor wooded space.
Bundles of similarly-sized branches rest on the ground in bundles, woven together with a bright red thread.
Group of about 6 dancers in view hold their hands up above their head in unison with fingers lightly touching to form an open-palmed point.
Dancers stand in a circle in an outdoor space curving their arms up and over their head as a person holding a child sleeping on their shoulder looks on.
Clusters of about 20 people gather in a forest setting, walking down trails and standing in a clearing.

This project was supported by…

This project was made possible by the Schuylkill Center’s LandLab Residency.