Est. in 1999
In the summer of 1999, Baltimore residents sat in the bleachers at Patterson Park Pool to see something new: their friends and neighbors performing in "Water Shorts," a water ballet dedicated to the cycle of life—work, play, love, death, rebirth. The show was the first water ballet production from Fluid Movement. Trixie Burneston, Valarie Perez-Schere, and Melissa Martens co-founded Fluid Movement officially as a non-profit community performance art group the next year; all of them were performance artists, Baltimore City residents, and Esther Williams fans, and they worked quickly to find compatriots and turn fans into performers.
Fluid Movement almost immediately became a fixture on the Baltimore arts scene, and branched out beyond the pool. By Halloween of 2000, their roller-skating offering, "Frankenstein on Wheels," drew more than 1,300 people. The group mixed and matched performance genres, topics, and locations around Baltimore—a go-go dancing show about pirates on the USS Constellation! A belly-dancing show about Freud in a Howard Street rug store! A fire-dancing show about that time in 1904 that most of Baltimore burned down! A roller skating show about some friends casting spells behind a Hot Topic! Contingents from Fluid Movement became fixtures at city festivals like Artscape and Light City. And with only a few interruptions, every summer Fluid Movement has returned to public pools in city parks for the annual water ballet extravaganza that serves at the heart of the movement. A typical summer show today includes an all-volunteer cast and crew of more than 100 people, and each production is more spectacular and ambitious than the last.
Fluid Movement has endured because both performers and audiences resonate with its core values: joy, play, collaboration, and a love of Baltimore City. All ages, all bodies, and all skill levels are invited to perform, to make costumes, to pitch ideas, and to direct and produce shows in all genres. We are Fluid Movement, and so are you—so please join us for the next chapter.