Warriors: A Love Story | CTX Live Theatre

Warriors: A Love Story
by ARCOS Dance

Sep. 11 - Sep. 12, 2015
Friday-Saturday

ARCOS Dance debuts its award-winning multimedia dance-theater production The Warriors: A Love Story—memorializing love in times of war, and the company’s first production in Austin. Inspired by the wartime experiences of Director Eliot Gray Fisher’s maternal grandparents, the production chronicles his intimate search for their legacy. The Warriors: A Love Story evokes the lives of J. Glenn and Ursula Gray with choreography, original music, expressive sound design, archival footage, actual family heirlooms, a diverse array of texts, and interactive video projections, blurring the lines between artistic disciplines and exploring history as mythology.

Ursula was a dancer in Dresden, Germany, who studied with early modern dance pioneers, including Grett Palucca and Hanya Holm, before the war and survived the 1945 Allied bombing of the city. Glenn grew up in rural Pennsylvania and received his doctorate in Philosophy from Columbia University on the same day as his draft notice. After fleeing her home and escaping to Munich under postwar American military occupation, Ursula met Glenn while working to revive its university. Personal journal excerpts from Glenn’s phenomenological memoir, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle, become scenes in the performance. Ursula’s love of movement and the power of beauty, meanwhile, makes dance an especially fitting vehicle for this intimate family portrait, set against the immense backdrop of war and its profound ongoing impact on our daily lives. Fisher narrates the production, grappling with the complexity of his heritage, as dancers bring to life significant moments from Glenn and Ursula’s story, encouraging the audience to contemplate what small actions they can take each day to work toward peace.

The fast-paced show received rave reviews at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, earning Mervyn Stutter’s “Spirit of the Fringe” award and accolades from national publications. As Mary Brennan of The Herald Scotland notes: “The Warriorsasks important questions: can we love our enemies—or even understand the losses we inflict on them? Can art—dance in particular—do more than words?” At a time when global conflicts abound and technology threatens to alienate us from our humanity, ARCOS intends its immersive multimedia performance to spark dialogue about significant philosophical questions about our actions and the intricacies of our lineage.