Key West Water Dance April 16

A Key West sunrise is a spectacular thing to behold, but it never gets the same attention and fanfare as its world-famous Westerly cousin, the Key West sunset.

It’s time to change all that. On Saturday April 16, at 6:58 am, Key West Water Dance hits White Street Pier as the sun rises over the Florida Straits. A free public event, this 15-minute performance is part of a massive happening across the U.S. called National Water Dance, which creates an opportunity for dancers of all ages and movers of all kinds to experience the power of art and performance as a vehicle for social change. The Southernmost island’s contribution features choreography by Eryn Rosenthal, movement by local community dancers, and newly commissioned music by the Haitian super-group Orchestre Christophiles.

National Water Dance will be performed at nearly 100 locations across the U.S. and live streamed on YouTube at 4 pm EST later that day. But because Key West does things a little differently than the rest of the world, we’ll be kicking off our performance at sunrise instead.

Key West Water Dance is choreographed by Eryn Rosenthal, an artist who has developed site-specific dance performances around the world, from Madrid to Michigan. Most recently, she’s been working with artists and activists in South Africa on Freedom Suite: Transaction Being Processed, a dance theater project that builds reflection on historical and current student activism.

Rosenthal’s Water Dance takes its inspiration from the poem Notebook of a Return to My Native Land by Caribbean poet Aimé Césaire, and considers the ocean in all its glorious complexity: from the threat of sea rise to the antics of dolphins, from the coral formation of Key West to water-borne migration.

Key Wes Water Dance is produced by The Studios of Key West and is free and open to the public. Complimentary coffee and doughnuts will be served. Dance, water and sunrise lovers should plan to arrive at White Street Pier at 6:45am.

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