Choreographer Liz Lerman, whose Maryland-based dance company is widely known for productions that are complex, had her trepidations when creating “Small Dances About Big Ideas.”
“I wouldn’t have necessarily picked it for myself,” said Lerman, who was commissioned by Harvard Law School to choreograph the piece four years ago. “It’s a tough subject. But when you put movement together with words, music and actual performers, it gives a voice to a complexity that you don’t get with a newspaper [article].”
Lerman’s “Small Dances About Big Ideas” takes a challenging look at mass violence, the scope of human compassion, and the capacity of the law to address genocide and other systematic atrocities. The piece uses movement, spoken word and audio recordings to convey those serious thematic elements.
“Small Dances” will be performed April 18 and 19 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Lerman and composer Jake Heggie will speak about the piece April 20, also at the JCCSF.
The piece is loosely based on portions of books about genocide, including Martha Minow’s “Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide and Mass Violence.”
Lerman worked closely with Minow, a Harvard Law School professor, researching various works on genocide. They chose material that would substantiate their goal of “allowing people to sit with [the performance] and not feel terribly guilty,” Lerman said.
Philip Gourevitch’s “We Regret To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families” and Clea Koff’s “The Bone Woman,” an intimate account of Koff’s trip to Rwanda to unearth evidence of genocide, also in-spired segments of the performance.
“Koff’s book has amazing artistic detail,” Lerman said. “What it smelled like; what the Bone Woman does with her clothes; what it was like on her skin. We as dancers can translate that into physicality.”
Another character featured in the piece is Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide” in the 1940s. Other characters include judges, a rape victim and a reporter who evolves from a stance of dispassionate observation to one of engaged advocacy.
Lerman, who founded the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 1976, believes that every person has the capacity to be like the dance’s reporter, who starts as a bystander and ends up an “upstander.”
“I saw people who began as journalists, and once they approached this question of genocide, they couldn’t behave in a neutral way,” said Lerman, referencing the research she uncovered. “It’s powerful to see people step out of their professions, saying, ‘I’m not the same person. I have to be someone different today.’ ”
“Small Dances About Big Ideas” premiered at Harvard Law School in 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, most notable for the prosecution of prominent Nazi leaders.
Since its premiere, “Small Dances About Big Ideas” has been presented at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., New York City’s Impact Festival and the EARTH Summit Conference in Vancouver, Canada.
Lenore Naxon, director of the JCCSF’s Eugene and Elinor Friend Center for the Arts, said it was important for the Bay Area Jewish community to experience Lerman’s “magnificent piece of art.”
“What people take away from the art is dependent on what they’re willing to absorb,” Naxon added. “This is not a literal story. ‘The Nutcracker’ has a story. ‘Sleeping Beauty’ has a story. I want the audience to have a meaningful experience that can range from being inspired, ready to act or angry.
“My goal with any performance [at the JCC] is for people to have a passionate response, regardless of what that is.”
“Small Dances About Big Ideas” will be performed 8 p.m. April 18 and 7 p.m. April 19. A conversation with Liz Lerman and Jake Heggie will take place 8 p.m. April 20. All events at the JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F. Information and tickets: www.jccsf.org/arts or (415) 292-1233.