Hiking the Horizontal

by Lerman, Liz

• ISBN13: 9780819569516
• ISBN10: 0819569518
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780819571489
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-04-04
• Publisher: AMAZON
• More Book Details

Summary

The unique career of choreographer Liz Lerman has taken her from theater stages to shipyards, and from synagogues to science labs. In this wide-ranging collection of essays and articles, she reflects on her life-long exploration of dance as a vehicle for human insight and understanding of the world around us. Lerman has been described by the Washington Post as "the source of an epochal revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art." Here, she combines broad outlooks on culture and society with practical applications and accessible stories. Her expansive scope encompasses the craft, structure, and inspiration that bring theatrical works to life as well as the applications of art in fields as diverse as faith, aging, particle physics, and human rights law. Offering readers a gentle manifesto describing methods that bring a horizontal focus to bear on a hierarchical world, this is the perfect book for anyone curious about the possible role for art in politics, science, community, motherhood, and the media.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Prologue	p. xiii
Questions as a Way of Life	p. 1
Fueling the Imagination	p. 2
Asking Questions as a Way of Life	p. 3
Two Dances: The Oldest and One Not Yet Made	p. 8
Wondering about Books	p. 21
The Sounds of St. Albans	p. 22
Was Einstein a Choreographer?	p. 25
Influence, Inquiry, Action	p. 27
Who Gets to Dance?	p. 39
Manifesto	p. 40
The Roosevelt, Dancing	p. 41
The Shipyard, Dancing	p. 49
Speech and Silence: The Who Matters	p. 56
A Liberation in the Gallery	p. 59
Being Another: One Kind of Technique	p. 60
What Is the Dancing About?	p. 65
I Met a Physicist	p. 66
Finding the Fish: On Meaning, Narrative, and Subject Matter Dancing	p. 67
Dancing on Both Sides of the Brain: An Essay in Text and Movement
Justice and Genetics: Two Program Notes	p. 86
The Problem of Abstraction	p. 93
Two Ways to Be an Angel	p. 94
Portfolio of Site-Specific Dances	p. 96
Where Is the Dance Happening?	p. 113
Scene at a Bedside	p. 114
Choreographing Space	p. 115
My Favorite Night at Temple Micah	p. 130
The Stage and Why It Matters	p. 135
Three Places, Three Stories	p. 142
Structures and Underpinnings	p. 145
A Brief Conversation with a Friend	p. 147
What Happens on a Residency?	p. 148
Dilemmas of Practice in Art and Healing: Response to an E-mail	p. 154
Structure: The Container That Holds the Dance	p. 161
What Is the Toolbox?	p. 170
Rehearsal, Defined and Redefined	p. 176
Free Fall	p. 183
Portfolio of Stage Dances	p. 185
Transdomain Practices	p. 203
Calling the Ancestors	p. 204
In Defense of Creative Research	p. 206
Onward with Petichta	p. 215
Fresh Readings: Reviewing Books on Tango and Nureyev	p. 217
Ruminations and Curiosities: A Series of Anecdotes and the Questions That Follow	p. 220
Partnering and People	p. 228
Seven Paths to Creativity	p. 239
Politics	p. 241
Two Assertions	p. 242
A Return to Inquiry	p. 243
Activism, Professionalism, Purity	p. 244
It Is Easier to Be against President Bush Than It Is to Change Small Dynamics in Our Own' Field	p. 246
A Job Swap and Slow Banking: Two Op-Eds	p. 250
Pushing Back: A Rant in Three Movements	p. 253
Small Righteous Angers	p. 260
Bulky Love	p. 265
To the Attendance Monitor at Sligo Creek Middle School	p. 266
Motherhood: Stories and an Interview	p. 267
Representation Found and Lost	p. 273
Critical Response at Home	p. 275
Bulky Love	p. 278
Epilogue	p. 281
Appendix: List of Choreographed Works, 1974-2010	p. 291
Index	p. 299
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