Glacier Park to host Climate Change Interactive Dance Performance
Glacier National Park will host a free, interactive dance performance later this month to bring attention to the impacts of climate change in Northwest Montana and celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service.
The performance is planned at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, July 24, at Lake McDonald Lodge in Glacier National Park.
Additional performances will be held at 8:30 p.m. Monday, July 25, at the Lake McDonald Lodge auditorium and at 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 27, at the West Glacier Community Building.
The original, hour-long interactive dance performance was created by CoMotion Dance Project from the University of Montana, which partnered with Glacier National Park Conservancy and Glacier National Park to bring attention to the climate change impacts occurring in Northwest Montana and to celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service.
“At Glacier, we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to communicate climate change and its impacts to the park and the surrounding area,” Melissa Sladek of Glacier National Park’s Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center explained in a press release. “Art is a great medium to explore changes on the landscape, engage new audiences and provide a framework for dialogue.”
Changing Balance/Balancing Change weaves artistic dance, original music, choreographed narration, video projection and live interactions with the audience into an immersive arts experience designed to engage audiences with the ideas and emotions at the heart of climate change. Developed for audiences of all ages, the piece touches upon the impacts of greenhouse gases, the rapid rate of temperature change and the positive action that can be taken.
“The year-long process of writing and choreographing Changing Balance has been deeply satisfying and also brought up many challenging questions — how to artistically piece together so many views about our responsibility for the Earth and how our modern lifestyles affect our changing landscape,” artistic director Karen A. Kaufmann said. “The final performance is a tapestry of science, art, mythology and the human spirit.”
For more information, call Sladek at (406) 888-7894.