My Body is a Library
“Libraries are a place for reflection on our shared humanity. The library declares: This is the pursuit of truth; our understanding continually evolves.”
– Martha Whitehead, Vice President of Harvard Libraries
We live in perilous times. My Body is a Library affords audiences the opportunity to reflect, discuss, listen, watch, think, and dwell within difficult subjects. The work is a multi-disciplinary project that animates spaces within libraries through site-specific participatory performances, immersive installations, and embodied research processes. What shapes the narrative is the responses of librarians who are asked, What knowledge do we as a society choose to celebrate, erase, and even criminalize?
My Body is a Library centers libraries as place of refuge and research, even as their values are attacked (book censorship, freedom to read, etc). Dance is an ideal form for investigating at a personal and collective level the arduous and exhilarating journey of comprehending how knowledge is on the move.
Inspiration
I cannot think of a better place to bring people together in times of such drastic change and division as libraries. When I living in Baltimore, MD during the Freddie Grey uprisings, the libraries stayed open for everyone. When I came to ASU, it was the library that was reconsidering the use of their building.
Libraries seem to be the place where people go to seek refuge, work, ponder ideas, and drink coffee as they solve the world’s problems. It’s also where books are found. Of the 38 million booked/printed materials in the Library of Congress, four are mine.
It makes me wonder why we don’t think about our bodies in libraries. We should. We don’t think about the knowledge that people hold that is not in books. We don’t think about the spaces that exist on the shelves, in the corners, and behind the red ropes that secure certain valuable collections. We can change this. My Body is a Library provides the tools to shift our relationship to these spaces.
– Liz Lerman
How information is kept, accessed, and shared is often complicated and somewhat messy. Libraries, by design, make possible the organizing, storing, and retrieval of source documents for the benefit of learning. To what extent they work largely depends on their classification systems that reflect their view of world order. However, we also carry other knowledge: our own personal truths, stories, oral histories, and embodied practices, which tend to live outside of institutional systems.
My Body is a Library embraces embodied knowledge as the core of human knowledge. How does history play out in the body? How does what is occurring in the moment impact our well-being? What traumas are held in the hips? What information is digitized versus buried in the basement or becomes top of mind? These timely questions engage difficult topics like intergenerational trauma and somatic memory and consider humorous, playful, and joyful moments. All necessary to heal, re-imagine, and co-create a thriving society.
Research
Research
While many of these ideas have been brewing in Liz’s mind for years, My Body is a Library began solidifying as a choreographic project after discussions with the Library of Congress and Harvard University around naming, cataloging, and referencing embodied processes.
Initially, a Mellon Foundation grant brought five choreographers together to reimagine artistic legacies. In her conversations with fellow artists Joanna Haigood, Eiko Otake, Merián Soto, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Liz was inspired to investigate knowledge systems accessible to the public, focusing on libraries.
Process
My Body is a Library developed out of what Liz likes to call “the long tail” of her previous work, Wicked Bodies. Sometimes, she’s not done pursuing the ideas embedded in a work because they continue to resonate with the state of our world. The research-and-development phase of My Body is a Library was sparked by a visit to Harvard University in fall 2023. She was still grappling with questions that had emerged during Wicked Bodies.
Liz has a long history with working across multiple partners and commissioners for the same project. In the past, this has meant that different presenters took on different issues, which allowed us to build a project that was national in scope and customized to local stories, needs, and capacities. This is particularly true for this project as its premiere is in a Law Library within an institution (Harvard) that is not equipped with traditional technical support or even conventional curatorial practices.
An early in-process showing took place at the Harvard ArtLab in February 2024. During that research period, we visited 10 different libraries on the Harvard campus, learning about the vast areas of research held at this institution.
Liz is delighted to share the choreographic and creative weight with Paloma McGregor, who she has been working with as a performer and facilitator for many years. This is their first collaborative work together — pushing and testing each other in productive and joyful ways.
Project Collaborators
Paloma McGregor, Lead Researcher & Co-Choreographer
Anna Clare Spelman, Videographer
Alex Nelson, Stage Manager
Erin Donohue, Creative Producer
Performers: Will Bond, Kayla Hamilton, Paloma McGregor, Ruby Morales, Elisa Garcia-Radcliffe, Angelina Ramirez, Vincent E. Thomas
Project advisors: Lizzy Cooper Davis, Lesliediana Jones, Martha Minow, Liz Phipps-Soeiro
Support the Work
Our continued research and development for works like My Body is a Library is made possible with the support of individual donors like you. Your generous gift is tax deductible and provides for our collaborators, rehearsal space, and the necessary luxury of time – time to process our ideas. Thank you for your donation.
