Global Water Dances Coney Island 2025 Program
Welcome
Opening Ritual
Water Rising
Choreographer: Lynn Neuman
Dancers: Tommy Batchelor, Aidan Feldman, Quetzali Hart, Ava Rakowski and John Trunfio
Water Rising explores the powerful nature of water and the water cycle, the rising of vapors and falling of rains, and cycles of the tides.
Introspection
Choreographer: Christopher Bisram
Dancers: Christopher Bisram, Arianna Franchesca Black and Julianna Outeda-Matute
Introspection explores Luyster Creek, also known as Steinway Creek in Astoria, Queens, which is an often forgotten waterway with a rich yet troubled history. Once a vital connector for flushing creek, east river, and mariners, it later became a dumping ground for toxins and now boarded by a ConEd power plant and film studios. Despite recent beautification, it remains neglected. Through Introspection we hope to bring awareness to our ability to change topography as well as how we have negatively impacted our waters and environment.
Moving the Rights of Rivers
Choreographer: Lynn Neuman
Dancers: Tommy Batchelor, Aidan Feldman, Quetzali Hart, Ava Rakowski and John Trunfio
Moving the Rights of Rivers takes its inspiration from movement patterns observed in rivers, their interconnected nature to watersheds, tributaries, lakes and oceans, serving as a metaphor for the interconnected nature of all beings, while envisioning a future where all beings, including nature, have rights.
The Story of Water
Collectively choreography from people across the globe compiled by Global Water Dances
Music: Nicolas Soto
This dance is being performed by hundreds of groups and thousands of dancers across the globe on this day.
Closing Participatory Movement
This program was made possible, in part, through the Global Water Dances Site Impact Fund and supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the city council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Artichoke Dance Company is an arts organization working at the intersections of performing arts innovation, environmental activism, education, community building and civic engagement. Our productions model scientific phenomenon and occurrences in nature, make use of recycled materials, and involve the public in the process and performance. We collaborate with scientists, architects, visual artists, composers, designers, filmmakers, museums, presenters, educational institutions, corporations and the public to create works infused with forward thinking perspectives. Our groundbreaking work inspires people to gather around pressing issues, to build community, create art, and enact change. www.artichokedance.org IG/FB/Bluesky: @ArtichokeDance
Chris Bisram is an Indo-Caribbean multidisciplinary artist with a primary focus in dance and theater. Bisram is currently enrolled in CUNY Hunter's BA program in Dance Education.Bisram is a teaching artist at LIC High School, where they teach and run an after-school dance program through the nonprofit organization Zone 126.Alongside this Bisram is the demonstrator for Marcea Daiters Dunham technique class. As an independent artist, they helped co-facilitate the art collective/stewardship Kin to the Cove, which grew out of the water- and time-based performance artwork 36.5 / A Durational Performance with the Sea by Sarah Cameron Sunde.
Global Water Dances connects and supports a global community of choreographers and dancers to inspire action and international collaboration for water issues through the universal language of dance. Global Water Dances began as a collective idea of an international group of individuals, certified by the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS), with decades of experience in producing Movement Choirs, events that use community dance to create social cohesion through non-verbal communication. They met attending a conference on Dance and the Environment in July 2008 at Schumacher College in England. The original group includes Karen Bradley, Richard Bell, John Chanik, Gretchen Dunn, Martha Eddy, Ellen Goldman, Marylee Hardenbergh, Antja Kennedy, Tara Stepenburg, Simone Hoever,and Daniela Schlemm. The first event took place in June 2011 where 57 locations came together for a 24 hour movement around the world. https://globalwaterdances.org/ IG: @GWDances, FB: @GlobalWaterDances
Lynn Neuman is a national leading eco artist and Director of Artichoke Dance Company. Devising arts experiences that reflect a place focusing on environmental issues has been the focus of Lynn’s work for 15 years, beginning with Your Planet: The Human Mapping Project linking street litter with plastic pollution in the marine environment and its impacts on the earth and all living beings. Lynn is an Association of Performing Arts Professional’s Leadership Fellow, NEFA National Dance Project finalist, and the only choreographer to receive a Marion International Fellowship for the Arts. Residencies include the Chautauqua Institution, Alberta College of Art and Design, Ucross Foundation, Art Omi, and Governor’s Island. She has been featured in Dance Magazine, the Los Angeles and New York Times, on NPR and Citizens Climate Radio, and in the Climate Check and Arts.Work.Life podcasts. https://www.lynn-neuman-art.com/