Core Dance, Golden Isles Arts & Humanities Association and Glynn Environmental Coalition are excited to join NWD Projects in assembling a movement choir of more than 2,000 dancers for the 4th Annual National Water Dance on Saturday, April 18 at 4pm EST. Core Dance will join dancers from 38 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico to dance for our lives in a simultaneous dance performance at water sites in our local areas. From Seattle to Atlanta, Maine to Florida participants are joining together to delight in and take responsibility for protecting our environment and call attention to climate change.

Core Dance chose to return to the Georgia coast reuniting our 2018 National Water Dance partnerships with Glynn Environmental Coalition, Jekyll Island Authority and Golden Isles Art and Humanities Association. Our planning meetings began in August of 2019 for a community-wide project involving local elementary students, local theatre groups, and coastal environmental organizations among others, to bring attention to local concerns for Safe Seafood. Then in September, when the Golden Ray Cargo Ship capsized off Jekyll Island, the sensitive ecosystem was compromised even more. Our work became all the more urgent.

Now, with the Shelter in Place mandate for the foreseeable future, our planning, and all of National Water Dance, has shifted to activating all our partners in a virtual way – connecting us all via live stream broadcast. We will offer “Dancing for Our Lives” from the homes of each individual as part of National Water Dance live streamed in a combined Zoom video broadcast on Saturday, April 18, at 4pm EST. Core Dance Artistic Director and Co-Founder Sue Schroeder states, “National Water Dance creates a platform which allows us to unite people from all over the country through movement to advocate for clean water for all. Water connects us and gives us life and we need to take responsibility in returning our water to life-giving.”

Everyone is welcome to participate in the 4th Annual National Water Dance. To learn more join us for our Zoom “interest” call this Thursday, April 9 at 4pm EST followed by a Zoom rehearsal on April 16 at 4pm EST, - To register for the Zoom Interest meeting &/or rehearsal, please contact us at info@coredance.org. If you are unable to join in the “movement”, you can also participate by viewing the live event on Saturday April 18 at 4pmEST. We need everyone to take part in bringing us back into balance with this precious planet that we all call home.

National Water Dance is an artist-driven collective of dancers, students, educators, and community members who create simultaneous performances across the country. Our focus for this year’s performance, which falls on the centennial of women winning their right to vote and an election year, is climate change. We invite everyone from every corner of our country to participate with us—to be accountable for our environment and bring us back into balance with this precious planet that we all call home. In the months leading up to the performance, dancers embody the collective spirit of our movement by weaving into their own choreography a shared movement phrase at the beginning and end of their unique dance. For the 2020 event on April 18, a portion of every movement phrase submitted will be incorporated into the choreography drawing together threads from throughout our nation to symbolically express our connection to one another and the planet.

National Water Dance expresses the best of who we are through the collective spirit of the movement choir: it is a celebration of art through one of the most rigorous art forms—dance. Uniting through dance and celebrating community—from urban to rural areas, from the subtropics to the snowy north—we acknowledge our interconnectivity to our environment and the shared concerns we have for its preservation, using the power of artistic expression to reimagine our future.