Dance Exchange a community movement

Liz Lerman, left, in the black tank top, leads participating dancers in a class at Paliku Theatre at Windward Community College. Lerman's Dance Exchange program inspires people of all backgrounds to come together and discover dance at their own levels. Photos by Gregory Yamamoto •The Honolulu Advertiser

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Lerman begins her program with simple movements to break the ice before asking dancers to explore deeper individual issues.

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday Paliku Theatre, Windward Community College $20 general, $15 students, seniors, military, University of Hawai'i faculty and staff; available at the door 956-6878 (UH Campus Center)

"You need to discover yourself with this particular story," she told nearly 40 participants about "Still Crossing," her innovative dance piece that involves folks from diverse backgrounds bonding into a dance 'ohana, however brief.

The diverse crowd — all ages, sizes, shapes and experience — had signed up and gathered for a first-time experience of working with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, a 26-year-old program that inspires people of all demographics and interests to converge and discover the relevance of dance at their own levels.

"I do sacred dance," said Pulelehua Quirk, a librarian, who showed up with her mother, Ruth, to see what the buzz was all about. "I hope it's fun," said Ruth Quirk.

"I'm a musician and composer who's worked with dancers," said Rick Mascarinas. "I want to explore all the arts, and this sort of completes the cycle."

For Semi Tufago, a drama student at WCC, the workshop/rehearsal would fulfill a class assignment. "I heard it was a good thing," said Tufago, "so I thought I'd check it out. But I'm more into hip-hop."

Still, he and scores of others gathered at Paliku to acquaint themselves with Lerman's style and immerse body and soul into the mission of exploring the journey of dance, the marvel of 'ohana.

With the assistance of three colleagues — co-artistic director Peter DiMuro and company members Martha Wittman and Ted Johnson — Lerman begins to unify the strangers.

Dancers first sit in a huge circle, introduce themselves by shouting out their names (Melissa, Heather, Karen, Paul, Aurora, Nick and so on) and eventually engage in simple meet-and-greet tactics under DiMuro's charge. It's sort of the requisite howdy-do effort of any mixed group, from formal workshops to therapeutic self-help sessions.

DiMuro started the ice-breaking expedition by asking the folks to extend right arm, cross the left, then shake a neighbor's hand.

"Get to know someone," he said. "You may have a little fear, a little anxiety. If you have joy, multiply; let the anxiety disappear."

Wittman got involved in non-threatening limbering-up exercises. "Reach for the sky, right hand, left hand, breathe in, breathe out."

Some of the stances resembled hula, often with, sometimes without the graceful motions.

Instructions were mood-evoking. "Keep your feet apart, like land moving beneath your feet." "Walk around, like you're going through streets and alleys. Not circles." "Feel for a box in front of you, like Marcel Marceau." "Roll, like you're on the deck of a ship." "Put your hand over your head, like ships moving in the night."

Like magic, a dance was in the making. Many separate entities were moving as a whole.

Lerman said "Still Crossing" "originated when we were commissioned to do something for a bicentennial celebration. With immigrants coming to America, I pictured my own grandfather, who walked across Russia to escape, and wanted to reflect this sense of a life-long effort that faced immigrants."

At one point of the workshop/practice, Lerman asked her new "community" of dancers what they thought "immigration" meant.

Isolated voices responded. "Start over." "Movement, transition." "Leaving the homeland." "Learning to live abroad."

"Immigration doesn't necessarily mean immigrating geographically," Lerman said. "I once worked with an old woman who lost her husband; taking her to a new world, where she was now a widow, is a form of immigration. You take time to connect to a place meaningful in your life, helping build that sense of community where there was none."

The genesis of her personal "immigration" came, she said, in the mid-1970s, with the death of her mother.

"My initial interest in this grew out of my artistic need at the time," said Lerman. "My mother died of cancer. To make peace, of having older people welcome her to a new place, I wanted to create a dance (called 'Woman of the Clear Vision'), using older people. I didn't know any older people at the time; when I tracked some down, I was so moved by what they brought artistically. It's true they learned from me, but they changed me, too. Many things happened.

"My art form was undergoing change; it was a minimalist period, quite abstract. I found I could do things with them that I couldn't do with younger people.

"I found they were beautiful. The courageousness of their effort was beautiful. Since then, I've really explored this area. In the concert we're doing, there's a thing about people and animals and a section for fathers and kids, where a cat is buried in a back yard. That's a part of my life. The authenticity and honesty of that movement, that regular people are involved, makes it all very special."

Not everyone excels. But no matter.

"What I try to do is teach all the skills these folks need to succeed as an artist; on the other hand, I want them to be themselves on stage. There's a paradigm; on stage, they both elevate to new places they've never been before, but they also bring their unique presence to the stage."

Building communities ultimately is to understand the functions of dance, said Lerman.

"There are lots of ways to build communities; some cultures are more in touch than others," she said. "Dance can have artistic, healing and spiritual functions; for me, one function is to help others reinvigorate their art form, finding new communities. Often, there's political motivation, too, bringing a voice to the voiceless, to tell a history never told before."