stories from the St. Vrain 2023
Project Collaborative Team

Maren Waldman, MFA
lead facilitator & Vision carrier

Maren Waldman (she/her) is a dance artist, educator, bodyworker and entrepreneur who has studied the body in motion for over two decades. Maren earned her MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from CU Boulder and has a BA in cultural Anthropology from Haverford College. She also is a licensed massage therapist and holds a certificate in permaculture. Maren has offered dance classes, private lessons, and healing arts to her communities since 2007 and led the budding dance program at Front Range Community College in Westminster for 5 years. Outside of teaching, her creative work has been focused on two ongoing environmental arts projects: Global Water Dances and Postcards to the Earth. Maren’s mission is to contribute to a future where care for the body and stewardship of the earth weave together to generate healing change. She lives in Longmont with her husband and 4 year old son and currently serves as a volunteer on the City of Longmont’s Equitable Climate Action Team (ECAT).

core Collaborators

Mimi Ferrie
Production Assistant
Children's Program Director
Arts & Public Health Researcher

Mimi Ferrie (she/her), founder/director of Anima Arts, is a movement educator, performer, community leader, producer, and arts & health advocate. With twenty consecutive years in movement education for children and families, she brings her passion and expertise in dance, movement, and the arts to the organizations she partners with. She has taught in multiple schools, libraries, community centers, churches, and art spaces, reaching thousands of students over her career. She served as the program director for Mountain Contemporary Dance Arts for seven years, implementing an artistry-focused program for movers ages two-adult in the licensed childcare facility Mountain Kids Louisville. She has worked with students with a broad range of movement experiences and cultural, physical, and neurological diversity in classroom and family settings. Mimi is a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder dance department and has continued her education in child development, arts education, and public health with institutions including the Colorado School of Public Health, Luna Dance Institute, University of Colorado Denver and National Dance Education Organization. She recently served on the 2021-2022 revision committee for the Colorado Academic Dance Standards for the Colorado Department of Education. She is currently an Arts in Public Health graduate student with the University of Florida’s School of Arts in Medicine. Mimi is the Executive Director of Wild Heart Dance and Co-Director of New Breed Dance Company, and mama to her two young children.

Melinda Harrison
choreographer

Melinda West Harrison (she/her) is co-founder and executive director of NatureMoves, co-facilitator of the Embodied Arts Training (EAT), and principal creator and artistic director of WilderDance Retreats (WDR), now celebrating 27 years of annual dance trips into the wilderness. Melinda is deeply engaged in the work of Anna Halprin (1920-2021). She began dancing with her at age 4, performed with her in Venice, Italy at age 15, and joined her San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop Company in 1969, where she performed in the multi-racial production of “Ceremony Of Us” with an all black group from Los Angeles at the time of Watts riots. Trained extensively at Tamalpa Institute since 1984, she served on the Tamalpa board of directors during 1990’s, and trained as facilitator of the “Planetary Dance”, “Movement Ritual” and “RSVP Cycles”, key resources of the Tamalpa work.  Passionate about movement-based art in wilderness environments, she loves mapping dances and making site-specific dance rituals at retreats held in Colorado high country annually. naturemoves.com

flood fire friendship
artists

Mimi Ferrie
Choreographer, Dancer

see bio above

Elisa Garcia
Musician

Elisa Garcia was born in Uruguay, immersed in the sounds of tango and other Latin American folk music. At the age of eight, she relocated to the US with her family and embarked on a journey of discovering other world cultures. Elisa’s interest in different societies and their customs led her to study Anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Elisa is currently living in Colorado with her husband and daughter. She plays Latin American folk songs with her trio/quartet which includes her percussionist husband Leo Muñoz Corona, and pianist Victor Mestas. They play a variety of styles from Cuban boleros to Mexican huapangos to Argentinian zambas and Uruguayan candombe.

Constance Harris
choreographer, Dancer

“I am a human and I am an artist. I use the ritual of dance to confront and eventually kill the illusion of ego. The desire to release this ego and live a life not crippled by insecurity and fear fuel my why. I use the magic of movement, rhythm, and joy to go on journeys to gain more clarity about my why and to hopefully make honest connections with others also searching along the way.”

Melinda Harrison
choreographer, Dancer
~with Susie Shea, Rhianna Gray, Nicolas Travers, and David Harrison

see bio above

Antonio Lopez
Musician

Antonio Lopez is a quiet man with something to say. His music is like an onion, each layer revealing more. His adept guitar work and composition skills are never used in a showy way but rather like the spices in a home-cooked meal. His songwriting is lyric-forward folk, with marimba swells and swooning Spanish guitar flourishes on top of a rock-solid rhythm section. The result is a feast of emotions that delight the listener.
​

Peg Posnick
Choreographer, Dancer

Peg Volpe Posnick has been active in the Boulder/Denver dance community since 1984, choreographing, teaching, performing, and facilitating movement workshops as well as Fieldwork sessions. She received her MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1996, where she was the Theater and Dance Department Community Engagement Coordinator from 2002-2018, was a guest lecturer, and taught Tour Ensemble from 2008-2010. She values opportunities to work and play with the other artists/movers and to share with community what emerges.

Virginia Schultz
Poet

Virginia Schultz is a Poetry Expansionist, Planner, Minder of Resolve, Ideator, Systems Thinker, and grateful Breather of Air living within strawbale walls on the lower north side of Gold Hill, CO. Virginia, along with the late Kathryn Singey and Jack Collom, co-founded Word By Word Journeys, where they facilitated professional development for K-12 teachers using poetry as a learning and assessment tool across subject matter. Virginia’s current project is SnaCkS IN SpAcE, a collaborative FB effects and poetry dialogue with visual artist Coco Gordon.

Laura Soto
Poet

Laura Soto is a Bilingual and Bicultural Longmont resident from Chihuahua, Chih. Mexico who currently works as Bilingual Equity & Engagement Specialist with City of Longmont. She is an active member of the SVVSD Parents Involved in Education (PIE) Taskforce, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) and the Latinx Advisory Council to Congressman Joe Neguse. She has co-founded local grassroots organizations Voces Unidas of Boulder County and Colectivo Cultura. Laura is also an artist who shares her activism via performance, spoken-word and written poetry.  She has performed for Motus Theater, Latino Community Foundation of Colorado, City of Longmont, City of Lafayette, Colorado Department of Education’s Migrant Youth Leadership Institute, Noche de Peña, Tonos Latinos, Dairy Center for the Arts, Longmont Museum, Latino Advocacy Day, Varrios Voices and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Learn more at www.BridgingCommunication.org

Maren Waldman
Choreographer, Dancer

see bio above

Global Water DAnces 2023
artistic Collaborators

Elisa Garcia
Musician, Dancer

Constance Harris
choreographer

Julio Amida/MiChantli Crew
Choreographer, crew director

Jesse Manno
Musician

Oliver Jacobson
Musician

Dexter Payne
Music director, musician

Mario Jose Olvera/
Danza Mexica TlahuitzcaLli/MiChantli
global water dances Opening Prayer and Dance

global water dances NatureMoves Dancers
Rachel Prairie
EMILY MORRISON
SUZIE SHEA
Rhianna Grey

global water dances Dance Leaders
Deborah Silver
Alysha Perrin
Jeanine MCCain

Community partners

St Vrain and Left Hand Water Conservancy District

Boulder County Arts Alliance

Advisory Team

David Harrison
Water Law 

David is a retired water resources lawyer and engineer in Boulder, Colorado, currently working as an independent consultant on conservation of rivers and clean energy, focusing on integrated planning of renewable energy in Brazil as a way of minimizing the impacts of hydropower on river ecosystems. Previously he worked for 25 years as a senior water resources advisor to The Nature Conservancy’s, Global Freshwater Team. David was a member of the Board of Governors of The Nature Conservancy from 1980-1990, and was Chairman during 1988 and 1989. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado, holding degrees in law, 1971, and Civil Engineering, Hydraulics, 1968. He also is active with NatureMoves, serving on the board and participating in outdoor dance events and trainings.

With Additional Council and Education From:
Beth Osnes (CU Boulder), Marda Kirn (EcoArts Connections) and my experience as part of the Art/Science/Action Cohort Community Engaged Scholarship and Science Advisors in 2021.

Sponsors

St Vrain and Left Hand Water Conservancy District

Boulder County Arts Alliance (BCAA)

Global Water Dances Site Impact Fund

Juliette Wells/Culinary Jules

UnaVida Meditation and Movement

Anima Arts

Longmont Community Foundation

An Enormous Thank You our Sponsors and Donors who help make these projects possible.

2021 Project Partners

Maren Waldman, MFA
lead facilitator

Celeste Moreno, MS
lead facilitator

Celeste Moreno is a designer of creative learning experiences and educational technologies with a background in scientific communication and visualization, informal education, and design. She has worked as an educational content developer, an exhibits and education assistant for a science center, and has completed multiple artist residencies. Moreno earned an M.S. in Creative Technologies and Design from CU Boulder and worked as a Research Assistant at CU Boulder within the Laboratory for Playful Computation. In January 2021 Moreno began a PhD program in the Creative Communities research group, advised by Ricarose Roque, assistant professor of information science. celestemoreno.design

Sarah Wegert, MS
Outreach and Education CoordinatoR
Left Hand Watershed Center

Sarah holds an MS in Education and comes from a 16-year career in education, serving as a Learning and Technology Coach, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Coordinator, oversees educator in Taiwan, and classroom teacher. Sarah is able to apply her creative lens, design thinking frameworks, and cognitive coaching techniques to connect with community members and stakeholders for the benefit of our watersheds. In her free time, Sarah enjoys hiking the trails around her home in Pinewood Springs with her husband and son. 

Melinda Harrison
choreographer

Melinda West Harrison is co-founder and executive director of NatureMoves, co-facilitator of the Embodied Arts Training (EAT), and principal creator and artistic director of WilderDance Retreats (WDR), now celebrating 27 years of annual dance trips into the wilderness. Melinda is deeply engaged in the work of Anna Halprin (1920-2021). She began dancing with her at age 4, performed with her in Venice, Italy at age 15, and joined her San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop Company in 1969, where she performed in the multi-racial production of “Ceremony Of Us” with an all black group from Los Angeles at the time of Watts riots. Trained extensively at Tamalpa Institute since 1984, she served on the Tamalpa board of directors during 1990’s, and trained as facilitator of the “Planetary Dance”, “Movement Ritual” and “RSVP Cycles”, key resources of the Tamalpa work.  Passionate about movement-based art in wilderness environments, she loves mapping dances and making site-specific dance rituals at retreats held in Colorado high country annually. naturemoves.com

Constance Harris, MFA
choreographer

Constance is a Denver-based, New Jersey native and graduate of the Masters in Dance program at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her fusion dance style is the result of over twenty years of combined experience in a variety of dance experiences ranging from Modern, Middle Eastern forms, nightlife entertainment and styles based in Africanist aesthetics. Her professional career began as a chorus dancer for Jillina Carlano's Belly Dance Evolution. She would later go on to co-found the New Jersey based fusion dance company, Be. Coming Movement in 2016. One of Constance's biggest passions is freestyle/Go-go dancing and she has been honored to dance at some of the country's liveliest nightclubs and festivals, including The Trestle Inn (Philadelphia), Premier Nightclub (Atlantic City), Mile High Soul Club (Denver), and Global Dance Festival (Denver). She is currently an instructor of Afrofusion dance at the street dance and breaking studio, Block 1750, in Boulder, CO.  www.danceconstancedance.com

Supporting Collaborators

Karen Cozzetto, PhD,
Climate Change Education
Water Scientist

Karen is a Co-Manager with the Climate Change Program at the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) at Northern Arizona University. She develops curriculum for and coordinates climate change trainings and webinars, and develops content for the ITEP’s Tribes & Climate Change website. She also works with individual tribal communities to facilitate the development of climate change adaptation plans. Prior to joining ITEP, Karen obtained a Ph.D. in hydrology from the University of Colorado – Boulder. She was the lead on a Native American Communities and Climate Change Preparedness project and was a contributing author on the Indigenous Peoples chapter of the third National Climate Assessment. Most recently, she helped organize a project, Tribe’s Eye – Native American Youth Photograph Environmental Change. 

Momo Freehill
creative consultant & collaborator

Founder of Butopia; offering nature- based retreats + somatic wellness training in PNW + Whidbey Island, WA. In Colorado, she serves as primary faculty and board member of NatureMoves, nurturing embodied intimacy between humans and nature. She specializes in creation, management and promotion of all aspects of our educational, artistic and nature based programs. With over 30 years as improvisational performer, educator and director: Maureen is recognized internationally for innovative fusing of eastern + western modalities with what’s natural; she creates Butoh Landscape offerings in lineage of Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno, with whom she lived and studied for many years in Japan, for regular appearances at major dance events. Maureen is passionate about landscape based dance explorations. She founded and directs a number of site-specific dance in place projects and websites including DailyDance.net; a celebration of 50th Anniversary of Butoh dance with over 500 daily videos in different sites globally, Gene Keys Movement; a weekly dance video project focused on 64 Hexagrams of the I Ching, and Let’s Dance Together Online; a Covid19 inspired and NatureMoves sponsored project to keep people all around the world connected and dancing “in place” during this time of “stay at home.” In private practice, she utilizes eco-somatic inquiry and movement arts to guide groups + individuals through their embodied self-illumination; including navigating the Gene Keys and Human Design systems. www.butopia.net

Dexter Payne
Musician

https://dexterpayne.com/my-story/

2021 Advisory Team

Norma Johnson
Advisor for Inclusivity & Equity in Arts
poet, healer, consultant

Norma Johnson is a spiritual healer, writer-poet-playwright, performance artist, consultant and facilitator that brings a creative background into her distinctive presentation form of racial justice education and activism. She presents and facilitates across a dynamic range of organizations, institutions, faith communities, educational forums and more and her poetry about race is used enthusiastically by educators across the country. Norma’s storytelling inspires awareness and insight and the power we have, to bring paths of healing to our future. allinspirit.com. 

David Harrison
Water Law 

David is a retired water resources lawyer and engineer in Boulder, Colorado, currently working as an independent consultant on conservation of rivers and clean energy, focusing on integrated planning of renewable energy in Brazil as a way of minimizing the impacts of hydropower on river ecosystems. Previously he worked for 25 years as a senior water resources advisor to The Nature Conservancy’s, Global Freshwater Team. David was a member of the Board of Governors of The Nature Conservancy from 1980-1990, and was Chairman during 1988 and 1989. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado, holding degrees in law, 1971, and Civil Engineering, Hydraulics, 1968. He also is active with NatureMoves, serving on the board and participating in outdoor dance events and trainings.

Scott Griebling
Water Resources Engineer
St. Vrain and Left Hand Water Conservancy District

Scott Griebling is a Water Resources Engineer with over 15 years of experience in integrated hydrologic modeling, groundwater modeling, data analysis, GIS, hydrologic systems monitoring, and water resources planning. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder, then returned to Boulder to earn a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering after spending several years working on river restoration projects in the Pacific Northwest. Before joining the St. Vrain and Left Hand Water Conservancy District, Scott spent 8 years working on the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program as part of the Executive Director’s Office staff. Scott grew up backpacking, fishing, canoeing, and rafting throughout Colorado. He continues to get out in the backcountry and shares his love of the outdoors and Colorado water with his family.

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With Additional Council and Education From:

Marda Kirn, Patrick Chandler, Emmanuelle Vital, and Erin Leckey with

Art/Science/Action Cohort Community Engaged Scholarship and Science Advisors