Go back When Movement Speaks: The Project’s First Wellbeing Residency Takes Place in Valmiera
How do you tell a story without words? This autumn, hard-of-hearing students at Valmiera Gauja Bank Secondary School – Development Centre (VGV-AC) are exploring this question in the creative workshop “Me and My Story”. The workshop is led by choreographer and circus artist Lelde Feldmane. It is the first wellbeing residency of the project “Improving the Availability and Accessibility of Riga Circus Cultural Services in Riga and the Regions”.
From Story to Movement
At the heart of the workshop is the person and their story. Participants are invited to share two vivid life events that have changed or influenced them in some way, or that became a turning point in their lives. These stories do not have to be told only in words. Together with the choreographer, participants explore them and express them through movement, gesture, sound, music, memory and their relationship with space. For one participant, an important life event may be connected to a particular song. For another, it may be a gesture, an object, a movement or a sound. For someone else, it may be a specific place or space.
In the sessions, students dance, try out circus elements, and learn to sense their partner and find a shared rhythm. Circus arts are especially well suited to this work: balance and movement in pairs or groups are impossible without paying attention to one another.
The sessions take place in two stages: from 5 to 15 October and from 26 October to 5 November. At the end of the residency, the individual stories will come together in a short joint stage piece performed by all participants.
What Matters Most: Joy
The residency is not designed as a story about hardship. Its aim is to create an experience of joy, belonging and togetherness. Participants take part as individuals, each with their own personality and experience. One of the workshop’s most important messages is very simple: “You are not alone.”
What Is a Wellbeing Residency?
In a wellbeing residency, an artist works for a set period of time in a specific setting, such as a school, a social care institution or a rehabilitation centre. There, together with the people in that setting, the artist builds a creative process in which everyone can take part safely. Residencies give people who find it harder to reach art in everyday life the chance to experience it in person. Riga Circus already has experience with this kind of work, including at Graši Children’s Village. Within the project, we will continue and develop this programme in other parts of Latvia as well.
#ESfondi #EUfunds #EUinmyregion
Project No. 4.3.2.0/1/25/A/037 “Improving the Availability and Accessibility of Riga Circus Cultural Services in Riga and the Regions” is co-funded by the European Union under the European Union Cohesion Policy Programme 2021–2027, specific support objective 4.3.2 “Enhancing the role of culture and tourism in economic development, social inclusion and social innovation”. The project is implemented from 1 June 2026 to 31 December 2029. The total eligible costs of the project are EUR 999,999.41, of which EUR 849,999.50 is funding from the European Regional Development Fund and EUR 149,999.91 is state budget co-financing.
