Arts & Humanities Society & Culture

Educator, choreographer Liz Lerman to hold weeklong residency at UGA

Lerman
Liz Lerman  

Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia Ideas for Creative Exploration, or ICE, will host dance choreographer and educator Liz Lerman for a weeklong residency. Lerman will present a lecture, “Hiking the Horizontal: Making Rules, Breaking Rules,” on Nov. 1 at 4 p.m. in room 248 of the Miller Learning Center.

“Liz Lerman’s five-day residency will feature both her mastery as a choreographer and her extraordinary ability to galvanize and inspire dialogue among multiple voices-artistic, scientific and scholarly,” said Mark Callahan, artistic director of ICE.

A choreographer, performer, educator and writer, Lerman organizes highly collaborative works that cut across traditional disciplines and communities. She has been the recipient of numerous honors, including a MacArthur Genius Grant Fellowship and a U.S. Artists Ford Fellowship. Her work has been commissioned by the Lincoln Center, American Dance Festival, Harvard Law School and the Kennedy Center. Her recent effort, “The Matter of Origins,” examines the question of beginnings through dance, media and other formats and is supported by the National Science Foundation.

In 1976, Lerman founded the Washington, D.C.-based Dance Exchange, which is now regarded as one the most innovative and creatively expansive dance companies in the world. She is the author of many articles and books including “Teaching Dance to Senior Adults,” “Critical Response Process” and “Hiking the Horizontal: Field Notes from a Choreographer.”

Her visit will include a public lecture, master classes in the department of dance and a workshop based on her book “Critical Response Process,” a feedback methodology that evolved over the past 20 years through workshops and a book that has been adopted by many art makers, educators and administrators. Lerman will be joined by John Borstel, a visual artist, writer, arts administrator and senior adviser for Dance Exchange. Borstel is co-author of “Critical Response Process” and has travelled widely to teach and facilitate the feedback system, which emphasizes the values of dialogue and active involvement by the artist.

Lerman’s residency is sponsored by the UGA Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, the department of dance, the department of theatre and film studies, the Lamar Dodd School of Art and the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. The program also is supported in part by the President’s Venture Fund through the gifts of UGA Partners and other donors.

For more information about Ideas for Creative Exploration, see http://ice.uga.edu.