Liz Lerman’s “Healing Wars,” the first dance event of Peak Performances 2014/15 season, opens at the Kasser Theater for three days only, September 25-27, following three weeks of sold-out performances at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C this past June.
Marking Liz Lerman’s most recent dance theater production, “Healing Wars” explores the brutalizing traumas of war, the eradicable effects it has on both the healer and the healed, and the many glorious and unexpected ways in which they compensate.
The 90-minute work presents a real and surreal panoramic consideration of the effect of war on bodies, the spirit and the emotional lives of everyone effected. Soldiers, nurses, surgeons and spirits migrate between the American Civil War and our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan revealing their frightening similarities, despite the difference in centuries.
The production features a cast of eight dancers and actors, who play multiple roles, as well as former Navy Gunners Mate Paul Hurley, who though he lost a leg in an IED attack in Falluja, is able to dance. Broadway actor Michael Scott replaces Bill Pullman.
The soundscape is by Tony Award-winning sound designer Darron L West; the scenic environment is by David Israel Reynoso and the media projections are by Kate Freer. The choreography was created by Liz Lerman and veteran dancer Keith Thompson, who also performs in the production.
“Healing Wars’ is part of the National Civil War Project, a radical multi-city, multi-year collaboration among four universities and five performing arts organizations to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.
Inspired by Liz Lerman, the project involves four multi-city partnerships facilitated through the launch by Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater and The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The other three partners include Alliance Theatre and Emory College Center for Creativity & Arts at Emory University in Atlanta; American Repertory Theater and Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.; and CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore and The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland in College Park. These diverse localities symbolize the geographic scope of the American Civil War.