Choreographer works at genetic level

DURHAM -- Like an orchestra of mechanical toys, 27 people sit in a circle moving to the sound of a boombox symphony.

Flutes trill as three people bring their fingers to their mouths repeatedly as if licking a thread to put through a needle. Violins join the rollicking score as a few more appear to deal cards. Members of a third group pretend to inspect a scar on a finger. Still others mimic smoking, playing piano, caressing a wedding ring.

This is a dance about mothers and their hands, and anybody can choreograph one.

But why would we, if we're not dancers?

That's what choreographer Liz Lerman sought to demonstrate in a workshop with caregivers from Duke Medical Center and around the state. Their expressions may wind their way into "Ferocious Beauty: Genome," which her company will perform tonight and Friday to cap a weeklong series of events at Duke.

"Ferocious Beauty" uses dance and multimedia to explore the complexities of research into genomes, the genetic makeup of an organism. As scientists have learned to identify and manipulate genomes, debates have arisen about the ethics and consequences of exerting control over the biological composition of our bodies and those of livestock and the plants we grow and eat.

Lerman, whose company is based in Maryland, spent three years creating "Ferocious Beauty" at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., where it debuted in February. She worked with scientists, ethicists, theologians and others. It will continue to change as she tours and does residencies and workshops such as those at Duke, which were sponsored by Duke Performances in collaboration with the Duke Institute of Genome Sciences & Policy.

It's an unusual project for modern dance, which more commonly focuses on abstract ideas and emotions. But it's typical for Lerman, who built a multigenerational company and has spent more than a quarter century creating dances with sick children, senior citizens, developmentally disabled people and others who are not generally encouraged to dance.

"When I want to understand something, I make a dance," Lerman says.

Molecules interacting

Genetics and dance may seem like an odd marriage, she says. But it's not.

Molecular biology deals with molecules connecting and reacting to each other, just as dancers do, says Lerman, excitedly describing a movement class she had just taught to medical students.

"They got to all this chemistry by talking about what they were discovering in their bodies," she says. "They got excited about it: 'If I make this connection with this person, we have to be stable.'"

The caregivers' workshop was equally revelatory as attendees in health care, art therapy and other fields explored ways to use movement to better understand and communicate with their clients, and to help their clients express themselves.

The dance about hands came from an exercise in which participants took turns talking about how their mothers used their hands, and observing the spontaneous gestures they used while talking.

Such gestures can reveal what mere words do not, Lerman explained to the participants. And they are a form of dancing, as the tender and funny culminating group dance showed.

Karen Crumbliss, who works with developmentally disabled people and was on the founding board of N.C. Arts for Health, says her studies with Lerman at Duke and elsewhere are invaluable.

"Just as we've seen in this workshop today, people are gaining knowledge of each other through the arts," she said after the workshop, which N.C. Arts for Health co-sponsored with the Health Arts Network at Duke.

"We don't even want to look at that medical side when we're thinking about people as just people, having the same emotions, dreams, life desires to work and to relate to other people, and who so often are excluded and segregated."

Lerman wasn't surprised at how the exercises energized the caregivers. She hopes "Ferocious Beauty: Genome" will affect audiences the same way.

"When I got started on this, somebody said, 'Oh God, you're going to be didactic? You're going to teach us stuff?' " she recalled.

"I said, 'Well, I love learning, personally. But I love discovering even more.' So part of my artistic job in this piece is to set it up so there's some opportunity for people to figure out what they can discover."