Moving Field Guide

An environmental experience partnering artists and scientists

The Moving Field Guide, conceived and directed by choreographer and Dance Exchange Artistic Director Cassie Meador, is an interactive experience led by Dance Exchange artists, naturalists, and regional experts in ecology.

Moving Field Guide projects look at how the arts can offer creative tools for knowing a place, not just using a place. The project provides people across generations an opportunity to get outdoors and gain a lasting understanding of the natural world. Participants move through experiences that build upon discovery, appreciation, recognition, and stewardship of the environment.

During this immersive experience participants activate their senses and observation skills through a series of outdoor movement activities. Combining an artistic and ecological approach to learning, Moving Field Guides help participants to consider the beauty, complexity, and human impact on the environment around them.

Each Moving Field Guide is customized in partnership with ecologists and naturalists from the region where the project is taking place. Past and present partners include: USDA Forest Service, Girl Scouts of the USA, Wesleyan University, US Botanical Gardens, Glen Echo Park, Arizona State University, and elementary schools throughout the Greater DC Region.

With generous support from the USDA Forest Service, National Endowment for the Arts, and MetLife Foundation, Moving Field Guides are reaching diverse communities in parks, botanical gardens, forests, and along rivers and oceans, while working closely with local extensions, natural resource management and community organizations.

Bring the Moving Field Guides to your community to discover how creative tools can be used to connect people to the environment around them. The Moving Field Guide offers a range of programming, from single workshops to longer and ongoing residencies at schools and in parks. Contact partnerships@danceexchange.org for more information.