Milwaukee Native Returns With Company Members For Community Workshops

MILWAUKEE - Liz Lerman, Milwaukee native and artistic director of the Washington, D.C.-based Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (LLDE), will be in Milwaukee for a community residency May 17-18. Lerman and two members of her company will be scholars-in-residence at Congregation Sinai and also will conduct workshops and other activities at Danceworks and Congregation Shir Hadash. Additional community partners for the project include The Milwaukee Idea's Cultures and Communities initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the UWM Peck School of the Arts Dance Program.

At Danceworks, Lerman teaches two workshops on May 17. The first, 9-11:30 a.m., is a professional development workshop for artists and educators using the arts in their work with elders in Milwaukee. This workshop is part of Danceworks' 50-Plus Initiative, a constellation of creative arts classes and residency programs serving "boomers" and elders. The workshop is designed for Danceworks staff and community partners in the 50-Plus Initiative, including the UWM Dance Program.

In the afternoon, Lerman and her team present "Moving into Partnership," sponsored by the Cultures and Communities initiative at UWM. The workshop will bring together Cultures and Communities' community advisory board, staff, affiliated faculty, and fellows for a series of creative-process and community-building exercises. "We share Lerman's interest in `the art of community'," notes Cultures and Communities Director Greg Jay. "We have just launched a community advisory board and have reached a critical mass of people associated with the program who will benefit from this opportunity to explore and create together."

Cultures and Communities aims to better integrate the goals of The Milwaukee Idea into UWM courses and curricula. The emphases of Cultures and Communities include diversity and cross-cultural literacy, community engagement, global perspectives, science and society, innovative pedagogy, service learning, and interdisciplinary learning. Cultures and Communities has a strong commitment to the arts, and many of their affiliated faculty are drawn from the Peck School of the Arts.

The artists also will be working with two area congregations in connection with the Shavuot holiday. They will participate in Shabbat services at Congregation Shir Hadash, 2909 W. Mequon Road 112N, at 7:30 p.m. on May 17 and will spend all day Saturday, May 18, at Congregation Sinai, 8223 N. Port Washington Road.

LLDE is a national performance company that has been shaking up ideas about what makes a dance, who gets to dance, and where dance happens since 1976. The company maintains a center for movement arts and art movements, linking people across generations, disciplines, and styles. As a civic resource, LLDE inspires broad participation in art as a path to understanding, community development, personal insight, and healing.

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