greene grants
2006 Greene Grant awarded to:
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange: Embodying Witness
Art and Learning in Response to Genocide…
In December 2006, The Maxine Greene Foundation, Inc. awarded a Greene Grant to the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange for their Embodying Witness project, which explores lessons of the Holocaust; the legacies of Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, and is committed to bringing the discourse into the public forum and basic education. A centerpiece of this project is "Small Dances About Big Ideas", a dance performance combining movement, the spoken word and theatrical soundscape. "Small Dances" is anchored in specifics of the Holocaust and Nuremberg Trials and reflects upon incidents in the decades following.
- The project will tour in 12 communities, expecting to reach 4,000 participants in schools, theaters, houses of faith and community groups.
- Integrate with workshops, adaptable to people of all ages and levels of creative experience, engaging participants in writing, speaking, dialogue and movement – centered around human rights and justice.
- Partner with "Facing History, Facing Ourselves", an educational organization focused on addressing racism and anti-Semitism, to develop a high school teaching model, and assist with documentation and evaluation.
"The opportunity to reflect about the impact of the Nuremberg Trials, not as an historical moment, but in terms of its legacy, carries on one of the issues I’ve explored throughout my life as a choreographer. What is our relationship to history?"
-Liz Lerman
"And surely we can affirm and reaffirm the principles that center around belief in justice and freedom and respect for human rights. All we can do is to speak with others as passionately and eloquently as we can; all we can do is to look into each other's eyes and urge each other on to new beginnings."