Colleen Culley and the New York State Dancing Green Project

About a week ago I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Colleen Culley, a dancer and choreographer who spends her time between Ithaca and New York City. Although not the primary focus of her work, Colleen has created several dance projects with the themes of environment and community involvement, mainly in association with the New York State Dancing Green project. What struck me most while talking to Colleen was how invested she is in engaging communities of people and how she has combined the ideas of environment and dance to help bring communities together. Both dance and the environment are two things that we can all relate to whether we realize it or not: we all have bodies that we use to communicate, at least in some capacity, and we all live on the earth in one type of ecosystem or another.

In case you’d like to know a little more background about Colleen Culley and her work before continuing to read about our conversation, here are some useful links that include pictures and videos:

Info about the New York State Dancing Green Project

http://dancinggreenproject.com/

Colleen Culley’s website, Moving Into Greatness

http://www.moveintogreatness.com/

What have Colleen’s “environmental dance projects” been like?

Colleen informed me that the environmentally themed projects she has created have focused on including community members and participation has not been limited to trained dancers or performers. She focuses on the expression and experience of the participants rather than trying to convey a specific message or image of her own creation. She also told me that she does not focus on specific environmental issues (“for example the anti-fracking dance”) but rather hopes that her work will help participants become generally more connected to each other and aware of the surrounding environment. All of the events associated with the NYS Dancing Green Project took place outside in what you might call a flash-mob or movement choir-like structure. 

Many analogies can be made between the body and the environment

Colleen also discussed the relationship between body and environment and how certain analogies may help participants to feel that they can better understand and connect with their environments. During our conversation she stated that “the environment could be thought of one great big organism, and the body is similar; it is in itself one ecosystem. You can even draw parallels between rocks and bones, and water and lymphatic fluid.”

I would add to that statement another analogy between our bodies and the environment; if we as humans consume too many synthetic chemicals and drugs, or try to force our bodies to do things that they are not “naturally” capable of, we will become sick and eventually shutdown. If we put too many chemicals into the surrounding environment, or try to significantly alter an ecosystem, the environment will also become “sick.” Maybe this seems overly intuitive, but I don’t think it is something we should automatically overlook. As Colleen mentioned, often the idea of “the environment” can seem like a distant, abstract concept to many people. Perhaps by examining the environment starting on a body-level more people will be able to have a better sense of understanding and connectivity both within themselves as well as to our surroundings.

The stigma surrounding “Environmental Dance”

Although Colleen stated that she has encountered some initial negative or doubtful reactions with regards to her work combining dance and the environment, people in the upstate New York and Ithaca area are generally more open to the idea than the people she has worked with in Manhattan. She added that she believes there is a stigma around environmentalists in general because often the term environmentalist is “linked to [people] who aren’t seeing a larger perspective, who are rigidly saying ‘save the world’ without considering that our energy does have to come from somewhere, and if it isn’t in my backyard it is in someone else’s backyard.”

Although I believe there are many factors that contribute to stigmas associated with both separate terms “environment” and “dance” I think Colleen summed up one of the most common negative associations with the current environmental movement; the idea that environmental advocates don’t really understand the complexity of our environmental problems and how difficult it is to find successful solutions.

Impact on participants

I asked Colleen how she thought her dancers/participants had been effected as a result of being involved in the NYS Dancing Green Project and I was struck by how much positive feedback she has received in this regard. Although Colleen stated that she initially struggles to get people to participate, “by the end they always want more.”

She mentioned that most participants seem to have gotten closer to each other, more comfortable with performing and “being seen,” and several even started new environmentally themed projects as a result of their participation. “One participant was a teacher and she started having her class do environmentally-based dances… [Another participant] did a project with me on the oil spill in the city, and that spurred her to create a performance art project that was then performed in Time Square.”  Colleen also mentioned that her participants informed her of how they were physically and emotionally impacted by performing some of the movements from Colleen’s projects and as a result continued performing the movements on their on “just as a sort of health, clarity, and awareness practice.”

As you can see Colleen has been involved with implementing some really cool projects! I am struck most by how many of these projects seem to have effectively spread ideas and awareness, at times even branching off into other projects. Our conversation also spurred me to think more about the importance of community and the difference between community participation and observation in relation to dance and the environment.