National Water Dance
Since 2020, Emily Wright has created four National Water Dance projects in Charlottesville, Virginia. Developed in collaboration with dancers, students, musicians, and community participants, these performances explore relationships between bodies, waterways, ecology, and place through site-responsive and concert dance.
2026 - Waterbodies
Community dancers perform at the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont; pc: Alyce Johnson
Student dancers in UVA’s Spring Dance Concert; pc: Tom Daly
The 2026 project unfolded through two interconnected performances that explored water as both an environmental and embodied experience. WaterBodies, presented as part of the University of Virginia Spring Dance Concert, brought together student dancers in a theatrical performance, while a simultaneous community-based performance invited audiences into a shared, site-responsive experience. Together, the projects explored movement as a way of deepening awareness of local watersheds, community, and our relationships with the living world.
2024 - moving forward together
Created in collaboration with dancers and community participants, this site-responsive performance unfolded along the Rivanna River, inviting audiences to travel through the landscape alongside the performers. Inspired by the movement of water —its capacity to flow, gather, carve, and transform—the choreography drew connections between the Rivanna watershed and the fluid systems of the human body.
Video and image stills: Kai Filippucci
2022 - dancing out of time
Responding to the national theme, Dancing Out of Time, the 2022 project explored our physical relationship with the Earth through movement, inviting dancers and audiences to experience water as a source of connection, gratitude, and reciprocity. Developed as part of the national theme "Running Out of Time," the project reflected on how embodied awareness can deepen our care for one another and for the places we inhabit.
2020 - Dancing For Our Lives
Originally conceived as a site-responsive community performance along the Rivanna River, the 2020 National Water Dance project was reimagined just weeks before its premiere as the COVID-19 pandemic brought in-person gatherings to a halt. Members of the Charlottesville group participated from their homes and local outdoor spaces, each finding their own point of connection with water—a neighborhood stream, a backyard pond, or even a collection of glass vessels on a porch. Gathering through Zoom, the performance became a shared exploration of movement, place, and connection across distance, revealing how choreography can adapt while continuing to foster community and care.