Open Process with Liz Lerman is a rare opportunity to engage with the iconic artist’s process as she develops Wicked Bodies.
Liz Lerman is an internationally recognized choreographer whom the Washington Post has described as “the source of an epochal revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art.” Her dance/theater works have been presented at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Lincoln Center in New York, and the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, and she is the recipient of the 2015 American Dance Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. Lerman is currently Institute Professor at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, where she leads programs and courses that span disciplines across the university.
A key aspect of Lerman’s process is engaging in multidisciplinary research to create dance works that are participatory, relevant, urgent, and usable by others, and Wicked Bodies is no exception. Perfect for the #metoo era, the piece takes up “wicked women” as its subject to explore how women’s bodies historically have been interpreted, portrayed, legislated, and negated. In her research, Lerman has delved into cultural histories of the witch and how she has been represented in art, literature, and popular media; she has also taken inspiration from many real-life sly, grotesque, sensual, and wildly creative women throughout history.