Everyday the news abounds with stories of wounded veterans returning home and re-building their lives after their service in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now a new work of dance theater from trailblazing choreographer and director Liz Lerman honors those veterans and the doctors and nurses who work to heal them. “Healing Wars” makes its New Jersey/New York premiere at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University September 25 – 27.
“Healing Wars” connects our modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the American Civil War. The 150th anniversary of the American Civil War inspired Lerman to create the piece, which features Iraq War veteran Paul Hurley in a key role.
According to Lerman, she was “fascinated by the nuns…who were on the Gettysburg battlefield to aid, heal, and baptize the fallen.” While studying the individual lives of nurse practitioners at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, Lerman encountered a room of photographs of amputees and “made the absolute link to our current wars.” She noted that she was “driven by the urgency of what is going on around us as our country has been at war for so long…I began to wonder about the nature of numbness within the civilian population.”
Lerman also asked herself, “What happens when he soldiers come home? What lingers in the wounds of the body and how do our minds accommodate what has happened?”
“Healing Wars” runs September 25 – 27 only at the Alexander Kasser Theater. All tickets are just $20. Convenient parking is available in the Red Hawk Deck, directly adjacent to the Kasser. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit www.peakperfs.org or call the box office at 973-655-5112.