Dancing with an Ethical Agenda

When a 75-year-old man skillfully rolls to the floor, it becomes obvious that Liz Lerman Dance Exchange is not your average modern dance company. Artistic Director Peter DiMuro once described the company as “just like your last family reunion, if you and all your relatives got together and made dances.” Last Saturday night, the company’s performance proved they are a family to which anyone would want to belong.

Even more remarkable than the wide age span of the dancers (which encompasses six decades) is the fact that you stop noticing it. Despite their wrinkles and white hair, the older members of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange are every bit as graceful, dynamic, and expressive as the younger dancers, and the total impression made by the company is one of a tender, talented, welcoming community.

The performance opened with “Preludes/Prayer,” a simple yet inviting dance which was choreographed by Peter DiMuro with contributions from the rest of the company.

The second piece, “Ferocious Beauty: Genome,” is an excerpt from a piece that will premiere at Wesleyan University in February 2006. According to program notes, the full work—the product of a three-year collaboration with scientists from all over the country—will address the biological and ethical issues raised by genetic research, from the nature of aging to the “market for human perfection.” However, this brief excerpt, while visually interesting, lacked clarity of intention, and the moments of narration appeared forced and unexpected. Perhaps the full-length work will provide the framework for addressing these structural issues.

The highlight of the evening was clearly the third and final piece of the program, “Small Dances About Big Ideas.” This piece was commissioned by the Harvard Law School’s Facing History and Ourselves Program, in conjunction with its conference this past week that honored the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials and encouraged analysis of the current state of genocide-related law.

The piece combined a wide variety of inputs—including excerpts from music pieces, recorded speeches, and even live narration with a series of danced vignettes that loosely traced the history of genocide from the Holocaust to Rwanda to, literally, today’s news. Impassioned solos that explored large-scale rape, the search for forensic evidence of genocide, and the emotional experience of the judge who presided over the Nuremberg trials were subtle reminders of the range of personal experiences of those touched by genocide.

This range of emotional response was extended when the narrator, dancer Peter DiMuro, turned to the audience mid-performance, and asked about their reactions the first time they heard about the Nuremberg trials. DiMuro proceeded to build a dance out of the gestures audience members made while speaking. He then had the entire audience perform this gestural dance, and the experience of sitting amid the sea of gesturing arms and participating in the dance truly evoked a comforting sense of shared experience.

The dancers onstage repeated this dance of gestures towards the conclusion of the piece. The audience’s personal stake in that dance made seeing its final recapitulation especially poignant, and deepened the sense that evening managed to tackle large concepts and devastating emotions through brilliant artistry.

—Staff writer Marin J.D. Orlosky can be reached at orlosky@fas.harvard.edu.