Ferocious Beauty: Genome (2006)

“…beautiful, richly imaginative, hugely ambitious… a seamless blend of dance, music, ingenious storytelling, video and special effects… captivating, surprisingly funny, intensely moving, thought-provoking.”

– The Chicago Sun-Times

Why make a dance about genomic science?

Because of what art does best: it nudges open the doors of perception, inviting individuals to locate their feelings in the context of a larger subject. Liz’s evening-length work Ferocious Beauty: Genome created opportunities for people to think about genetic research in an accessible, creative and thoughtful way.

Because of the collaborative wisdom integral to the project, Ferocious Beauty: Genome did more than provide an arts experience. It also helped to restore the imaginary rift between art and science, and by doing so celebrated the commitments shared by both fields: to provide insights for understanding – and for making positive contributions to – our world.

On the stage, Ferocious Beauty: Genome integrated elements of dance and theater with state-of-the-art recorded and live-feed video and a multi-channel soundscape. The performance took place in two acts. The first included a series of scenes emphasizing the awe and rigor of genetic discovery through vignettes about specific research subjects. This provided the audience with basic knowledge through videos of scientists, text, and dance.

It is also where the figure of Gregor Mendel – the father of modern genetics – was introduced as a character through both live performance and in video, in which he tends to his pea plants. Contemporary scientists, also shown in videotaped segments, engage in a virtual dialogue with him as they answer the question, “What would you tell Mendel if you were to meet him now?”

Inspiration

The idea for the work was sparked in the spring of 2002, when Liz was invited to Seattle to lead a public discussion on an exhibit entitled Gene(sis) at the Henry Art Gallery there.

The visual art in the museum’s show revolved around genetic research – its implications, its discoveries, and its potential. The museum sent Liz a background package, which provoked Liz’s thinking: “I have a teenage daughter, and the information made me wonder about the choices her generation might face,” she recalls. “When I was asked during a radio interview what my next project would be, I found myself saying I’d like to develop a project on the genome.”

Research

Ferocious Beauty: Genome, choreography by Liz Lerman

Research

Liz narrowed her focus as the project developed. “Once we entered the very large realm of genetics, genomics, and developmental biology, we realized we had tumbled into a place far deeper and stranger than Alice in her fall down the rabbit hole,” she said. “I realized that this project could be about capitalism, or religion, or nutrition, or population control. It could be about race and identity, or about ethics, or about policy and professionalism. It could be strictly about the mechanics of the genome, using dance to describe biological processes. It could be about the future. Ultimately, the piece poses small and large questions, but it doesn’t attempt to seek answers to all of the questions currently being generated by scientific research. No single work of art ever could.”

Process

“When we started to create Ferocious Beauty: Genome I realized that we had a curious challenge,” Liz Lerman explains, “which was to take a subject – genetics, and a form – modern dance, both of which are difficult to understand, and combine them into something that would be understandable. This paradox was with us as we generated ideas, talked to scientists, and mediated all the information we gathered through our bodies. Along the way we learned how ideas come into being when scientists ask questions, and we also saw how structure, characters, and meaning can come to artists when they rattle around in someone else’s universe.”

Project Collaborators

Collaborators include representatives of such institutions as NIH, John Hopkins University, Stanford University, Howard University, the Genetics and Public Policy Center, the Institute for Genomic Research and the U.S. Department of Energy. Scientists and scholars have not only advised on content, but also contributed choreographic and narrative ideas, as scientists appear in the staged work through projected video segments. They have also helped to leverage media coverage and design interactive programming such as town hall discussions on bioethics and art/science workshops.

List of Collaborators

Presenting & Funding Notes

Ferocious Beauty: Genome premiered at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University on February 3, 2006. It was performed across North America at venues including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Duke University, the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Chicago, the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, and the Mayo Clinic Convention Center.

Ferocious Beauty: Genome’s lead commissioners were The Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University and The Flint Cultural Center Corporation.

Ferocious Beauty: Genome received leadership support from the Nathan L. Cummings Foundation, the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding came from the Doris Duke Fund for Dance of the National Dance Project, a program administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ford Foundation, and from Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC). Additional developmental partners were the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Duke Performances at Duke University, Workspace for Choreographers, Maryland Institute College of Art and the Applewood Estate of the Ruth Mott Foundation. The Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University provided essential support and guidance.