Keynote Speaker: Liz Lerman

Liz Lerman on the content of her comments: “I will talk about how art and creativity are not soft sciences but really hard edged and, although filled with experimentation and discovery, can be counted on to aid human activity, especially when practiced with rigor, freshness, and no rules, including rules that the art world sets. I will talk about how permeable the boundaries are between the disciplines, between the walls of our studios and the walls of our cities, between our countries and our cultures, and why we must insist that they stay permeable, almost but not quite transparent, because sometimes we wish to be private. I will talk about the damages done in the name of purity, and how genomics is showing us that we are interconnected down to our nanoselves and why community based art and the universal human right to make art are next door neighbors in concept, structure, and sophistication. I will talk about how creativity is what we need to save the world, how the act of adding meaning and subtracting meaning, basic artmaking activities, can be applied to reconciliation, to self and to history. I will talk about how making distinctions is a creative act and how to avoid making it the biggest. Interactivity with the audience will be developed by my asking questions relevant to my talk, and using the responses and the gestures associated with those responses to build a phrase for a simple dance we will perform together using our own text, or music, or both.”

Liz Lerman, founding artistic director of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, has choreographed works that have been seen throughout the United States and abroad. Combining dance with realistic imagery, her works are defined by the spoken word, drawing from literature, personal experience, philosophy, and political and social commentary.

Over the past 26 years she has received recognition for her work with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and as a solo artist. In 2002, she received a MacArthur “Genius Grant” fellowship for her visionary work. She has received an American Choreographer Award, the American Jewish Congress "Golda" award, the first annual Pola Nirenska Award, the Mayor's Art Award, and was named Washingtonian Magazine's Washingtonian of the Year in 1988.

Liz’s work has been commissioned by Lincoln Center, American Dance Festival, Dancing in the Street, BalletMet, and The Kennedy Center. Her choreographic work has received support from AT&T, Meet The Composer, American Festival Project, National Endowment for the Arts, National Performance Network Creation Fund, and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

In 1997, Liz directed and collaborated with The Music Hall in creating The Shipyard Project in Portsmouth, NH. That project led to her three-year Hallelujah project, which involved people in 15 communities throughout the United States in an exploration of our reasons to celebrate everyday life. Her current choreographic project, Ferocious Beauty, Tiny Monstrosities, is an investigation of the impact of genetic research on our lives.

Liz is a frequent keynote speaker and panelist for arts and community organizations both nationally and internationally. She recently participated in Harvard University’s Saguaro Seminar, which gathers thinkers from around the United States together in order to promote growth of social capital and civic connectedness in America. Her book, Teaching Dance to Senior Adults, was published in 1983 and in 2003, she co-authored (with John Borstel) Critical Response Process: A method for getting useful feedback on anything you make, from dance to dessert.

She attended Bennington College, Brandeis University and holds a B.A. in dance from the University of Maryland and an M.A. in dance from George Washington University.