The Matter of Origins (2010)

“This hour-long contemplation of the universe is a work of expansive range, emotional depth and singular beauty.”

– Sarah Kaufman, The Washington Post

Liz Lerman’s The Matter of Origins combined choreography, media, and conversation. It addressed the physics and philosophy of beginnings and probed into the mind’s capacity to discover and comprehend the workings of matter at extremes of scale, from the quantum to the cosmic. Following a stage performance that constituted Act One, each audience moved to a nearby venue for an Act Two “Tea,” which served up cake and conversation, prompted by a postmodern floor show of dance and hand-held media.

Inspiration

“The Matter of Origins is about the origin of matter. But it’s also about how we perceive beginnings, discover them, think about them. It’s about speculation. It’s about how the human mind flips and stretches to comprehend things that are incredibly small, large, fast, or far beyond the categories of known experience. I suppose The Matter of Origins is a dance about a very big topic, but I also think of it as something more intimate and approachable, a meditation on the poetry of the mind.”

-Liz Lerman

More About the Work

The Matter of Origins’ Act Two Tea was staged by presenters in a variety of venues, including theater lobbies, rehearsal rooms, and on the stage itself. The cast for each Tea included up to 60 student/community dancers who acted as servers to help create a 360-degree performance experience.

An equal number of “provocateurs” – artists, scientists, and other thinkers – presided at the tables and facilitated the conversations structured into the Tea. The chocolate cake served at the tea was from the original recipe by Edith Warner, the Los Alamos local who was hired by J. Robert Oppenheimer to serve meals to the physicists who developed the first atom bomb during World War II.

Project Collaborators

Meghan Bowden, Ami Dowden-Fant, Thomas Dwyer, Leo Ericsson, Elizabeth Johnson, Ted Johnson, Sarah Levitt, Paloma McGregor, Cassie Meador, Tamara Pullman, Samantha Speis, Shula Strassfeld, Keith Thompson, Benjamin Legman, & Martha Wittman – Development and Performing Ensemble

Keith Thompson, Rehearsal Director
Michael Mazzola, Scenic and Lighting Design
Logan Kibens, Projection Designer
Darron L West, Soundscape
Naoko Nagata, Costume Designer
Sarah Gubbins, Dramaturg
Matt Hubbs, Associate Sound Designer
Lisa LaCharite-Lostritto, Tea Graphics Designer
Amelia Cox, Creative Producer and Production Manager

Presenting & Funding Notes

Commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland and by Peak Performances at Montclair State University, The Matter of Origins also received significant support from the National Science Foundation to further our work to establish meaningful and replicable evaluation structures for communicating science through excellent art.