Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange
While looking at a previous newsletter of the Howard Hughes Medical Center, we came across an article on Liz Lerman's dance, Ferocious Beauty: Genome. Still being performed today, we went to Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange, only to find that much of her company's choreography centers on contemporary issues.
"Commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Local Dance Commissioning Project in 2008, Drift is an original work by company member Cassie Meador. The initial concept for the piece was inspired by Meador’s visits to her hometown of Augusta, Georgia. Over time, a nearby plot of land was transformed from rich farmland to a strip mall, to the site of a Piggly Wiggly supermarket, and finally to what now is a place of worship – complete with the leftover electronic swinging doors from the Piggly Wiggly."
"Ferocious Beauty: Genome investigates the startling realities of how knowledge of the genome will change the way we think about aging, perfection, ancestry, and evolution. The company developed the piece through collaborations with thirty-four genetic scientists and researchers from leading universities and government agencies across the country."
"The result of an unprecedented partnership with Harvard Law School and commissioned by the Seevak Fund for The Harvard Law School/Facing History and Ourselves Program, Small Dances About Big Ideas premiered in November 2005, at Pursuing Human Dignity: The Legacies of Nuremberg for International Law, Human Rights and Education, an international conference that commemorated the 60th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials."
"Imprints on a Landscape: The Mining Project uses a combination of movement, video, spoken word, audio of interviews and original music to explore the connections between life, work and landscape in coal mining communities. The piece also touches on the role of new and renewable energy technologies in protecting the landscape such as wind and solar power."
"Liz Lerman Dance Exchange has a long history of making dances that address questions of faith. In a new suite of dances tentatively titled 613 Radical Acts of Prayer, Liz and collaborators – such as Japan’s Kyoto Contemporary Dance Center – utilize both ancient and contemporary concepts of prayer."
"Commissioned by VSA arts, The Farthest Earth From Thee is an original work inspired by William Shakespeare’s sonnets. The production features company and guest dancers with and without disabilities. Shakespeare revealed intense, intimate, and moving relationships through his sonnets. This collection of contemporary dances transforms his words into explosive movement and vibrant video images."
"Pas de Dirt is an illustration of the way the Dance Exchange answers its own question, "Who gets to dance?" Borrowing elements of music and a few pirouettes from Swan Lake, even heavy machinery gets a chance to dance. In fact, the cast includes propane-powered backhoes, their licensed operators, professional dance artists from the Dance Exchange, and ballet student guest artists."
"Man/Chair Dances provides a new slant on the partnership between music and dance. As an orchestra performs The Chairman Dances by the renowned contemporary composer John Adams, dancers move on chairs and platforms placed amongst the cellos, trombones, timpini and oboes."