Shape and Momentum: An Insomniac’s Guide for a World in Constant Motion
A new book by Liz Lerman
“This book shares the work, experiments, and tools built over a lifetime of artistic action. Just as some dancers hold shapes through their bodies and others burst with momentum, the poetic narratives and analytic insights artfully crafted here offer structure and movement for minds and hearts.”
– Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University
A choreographic manifesto for life in motion, offering new ways to navigate change and thrive amidst instability
A sequel to Hiking the Horizontal, Liz Lerman’s Shape and Momentum: An Insomniac’s Guide for a World in Constant Motion is a choreographic manifesto for living in motion—part memoir, part creative toolkit, part philosophical inquiry. Written in a series of essays, from single-paragraph meditations to expansive chapters, the book weaves together personal anecdotes, creative theory, and movement-based wisdom. Lerman draws on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to frame a central question: how do we hold both shape and momentum—form and change—at once?
With insight and generosity, she explores creativity as a life practice, rooted in embodied knowledge and accessible to all. Witches from her decade-long project Wicked Bodies appear throughout as fierce, funny guides, helping readers stay curious and grounded. Essays are grouped in thematic sections—lived experience, kinship, rejection, reflection, and radical imagination—culminating in an “Atlas of Creative Tools®,” a practical and poetic resource. Bridging dance, education, politics, and spiritual practice, Shape and Momentum offers tools for navigating instability and making a more relational world.
Coming soon from Wesleyan University Press — June 2, 2026
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photo credits: Anna Clare Spelman, Scott Chernis
