NWD Projects Inc.

NWD Projects is built on the dynamics of collaboration and community engagement.  It is unique in engaging dance artists eager and willing to create and perform work in challenging locations, from the mangrove forests of Matheson Hammock to the cypress sloughs of the Everglades, to the sandbar at Biscayne Nature Center.  For over a decade, its mission has been to use the visceral power of dance to bring attention to our collective responsibility to act on behalf of nature. 

The company was founded in 2014 to support National Water Dance, a biennial event held across the United States that brings together dancers of all levels to promote environmental awareness. In Miami, it has been presented in collaboration with the Deering Estate, the Moss Center, and the Biscayne Nature Center.  This nationally live-streamed event, which has included as many as 35 states and Puerto Rico, represents the focus on community and collective engagement that is at the core of NWD Projects' mission. 2026 will be the final National Water Dance in this iteration, and with determination, we are eagerly working to make this the most impactful.

Through collaborations with artists of all disciplines, NWD Projects creates new work in performance and film, working with visual artists Claudio Marcotulli, Karen Rifas, and Deborah Mitchell, and musicians Samuel Tommie, Ray Robinson, Afrobeta, and Miami Sound Choir under the direction of Laurel Merisier.

NWD Projects with Nicole Crooks, organizer of Girl Trek Overtown, will continue building bridges through “A Walk Through Our Neighborhoods,” an environmental performance project created from a series of neighborhood walks. Begun in 2023, the walks will continue this season with projected neighborhoods, including an introduction to the tree islands in the Everglades with Betty Osceola.  This project is co-sponsored by Dade Heritage Trust.

NWD Projects continues to collaborate with Live Arts Miami and Dream in Green through their workshops in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, serving elementary to high school students. Collaborating with multi-disciplinary artist Arsimmer McCoy, Dale Andree incorporates students’ feelings and memories about their connection to nature by engaging them in a physical interpretation of the spoken word poem created by McCoy from their responses. One of the students described their experience this way. 

"It feels like nature is greeting me gently, welcoming me home."