The Active Rainbow stories continue with reflections from participants of our latest project, sharing moments, emotions, and learning from their journey together. Scroll down to reconnect with the heart of the programme and discover what this experience meant for them.
To Move is a 10-day youth experiential learning programme that brought together young queer people from Greece, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Spain, and Italy in a safer and braver space to explore dance, movement, and embodiment as tools for self-expression, healing, and community-building. Rooted in Active Rainbow’s approaches to embodied learning and inspired by personal journeys of dance and connection, the project aimed to nurture empowerment through movement rather than technique.
The programme welcomed participants with diverse backgrounds and experiences in dance, focusing not on performance or skill-building, but on self-exploration, presence, and authentic connection with ourselves and others. Each day was filled with movement-based activities, reflection, and shared experiences — always guided by care, consent, and respect for personal boundaries.
Living together as a community was an essential part of the journey. Participants supported one another through daily tasks, collective care, and smaller group processes, creating a space where self-organization, compassion, and mutual responsibility could flourish alongside structured learning moments.
At its core, To Move sought to foster a supportive queer community grounded in acceptance and authenticity, strengthen self-awareness and confidence, and inspire collective action — including local initiatives in Riga and in each partner country. Through interactive and experiential learning, participants learned by doing, by sharing, and by moving together.
Enjoy the reflections and insights from this powerful journey of embodiment, connection, and collective growth!
My experience in “To Move” has been a wonderful journey of exploration, connection and playfulness. I felt very safe and welcome by everyone in the project, and that created the space from me to express without feeling limited and without fear of judgment.
Throughout the project, I reconnected with my body, I felt confident in myself and seeing the other participants also being that, for sure sparked joy and excitement! It has been a pleasure taking on different roles during these days, from bonding with my reflection group as a group leader, to actively learning and engaging as a participant, even becoming a co-facilitator for our street action in Cēsis and performer on the celebratory last day of the project.
My most important learning is how my body is indeed my center of support and how moving releases my tension and regulates my emotions. I definitely recommend this experience to everyone who is interested in exploring themselves and what their body can do, to those who want to connect and bond with other queer people and to those who want to boost their confidence and social skills.
I am very grateful I got to participate in this programme because I got to experience a safe(r) space where I got to be fully myself and explore movement.
For me, the feeling of safety and support is very important and I am so glad I got to experience it, by the team and from fellow participants.
This project was very meaningful to me in many ways. First of all, it reminded me of the joy and freedom I find in movement and dance, and allowed me to discover the beauty of moving together with others, as well as simply witnessing others in motion.
I feel that it brought to the surface many parts of myself that I had set aside for a long time — my sense of playfulness, the joy of being close to open people with generous and loving ways of seeing. Every encounter, whether individual or collective, was deeply revealing for me.
In particular, within certain groups I felt a deep sense of connection and belonging. I felt both like a child and an adult again, in the most beautiful, liberating, and supportive ways. This experience touched me deeply and created in me the desire to exist and to create such spaces myself, as much and wherever I can.