How Do We Move Through This? — A Movement Workshop Series on Water, Grief, and Collective Repair

How Do We Move Through This? is a participatory movement workshop inviting youth and adults to explore their relationship to water, community, and change through embodied learning. Developed by interdisciplinary artist and choreographer Victoria Bradford Styrbicki, the workshop draws from her semaphore-inspired choreographic framework, in which coded gestures communicate messages that cannot always be spoken aloud.

The workshop introduces students to the idea that water holds memory — of storms, pollution, healing, migration, and care — and that our own bodies also carry stories shaped by our environments. Using simple movement scores, flag-based signaling, and creative improvisation, participants translate feelings such as grief, resilience, fear, and hope into physical form.

Session One | Youth
Saturday, August 15 | 11am – 1pm

Session Two | Adults
Saturday, August 29 | 11am – 1pm

Workshop Phases

1. Listening to Place
Participants begin with sensory observation and short reflections on their own water stories — lakes they swim in, rivers they cross, flooding they have witnessed, or places where water feels unsafe or protected. This stage centers stillness, noticing, and “whole-body listening.”

2. Encoding Feeling into Movement
Drawing on semaphore and Morse-like principles, participants devise personal movement codes that represent feelings such as longing, distress, grief, hope, and resilience. Resulting codes — such as “I will keep going ahead (QD 2)” or “I cannot maintain my present course (PJ)” — are translated into gesture, allowing students to express complex or difficult emotions without needing perfect language.

3. Collective Signaling
Small groups weave their individual codes into shared movement phrases that become living messages. These sequences are performed for one another, creating a physical conversation about water, loss, care, and repair.

The workshop concludes with a facilitated dialogue connecting the movement work to local watershed concerns supported by MWMO and the Capital Region Watershed District. Youth reflect on how environmental change mirrors the emotional and social changes in their own lives — and how collective action, like collective movement, can shape healthier futures for both water and community.

This workshop aligns with Sacred Waters, Shared Future by cultivating ecological awareness, youth voice, and creative stewardship, inviting participants not only to learn about water, but to feel their role in protecting it.