Liz Lerman returns to Sonoma County with the world premiere of Wicked Bodies (Sonoma)

At the Green Music Center, we continually work to expand the ways that we support artists and engage audiences. We have helped commission a number of new works over the years and this spring marks the world premiere of our most ambitious commission to date. Wicked Bodies (Sonoma) by Liz Lerman will have its world premiere in Weill Hall on Thursday, April 14, 2022.
     Wicked Bodies is a breathtaking theater, dance, and multimedia piece that questions why some knowledge is celebrated, some criminalized, and some erased altogether. Lerman created Wicked Bodies (Sonoma) over two and a half years with deep engagement from the communities of Sonoma County and designed it specifically to be performed at the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall.
     In Lerman’s words, Wicked Bodies (Sonoma) “provides a history of sly, grotesque, sensual, wildly creative women that every culture carries in cliches, stereotypes, and fictions, because they are actually very real, and very present.”
     As the performance of Wicked Bodies (Sonoma) approaches this April, we are proud to reflect on the hard work and creativity that has gone into making this show come to life.
     In October of 2019, we presented the first work-in-progress performance here at the Green Music Center. This presentation offered the audience excerpts from the piece, as well as Lerman’s commentary on the process. In November 2020 – in accommodation with the pandemic – Wicked Bodies (Sonoma) went online as part of The Green Room, our online series of performances and conversations with artists. With accompanying video segments from the Wicked Bodies development process, Executive Director Jacob Yarrow spoke with Lerman about why she chose to develop a performance about witches, and what knowledge we all might gain from the experience of viewing it.
     Since these preliminary performances, Lerman and her company have been incredibly active on campus, in classrooms, and in our communities, leading passionate conversations about the performing arts, and the challenging ideas of our time. With a total of 38 engagement activities, Liz reached more than 1,200 Sonoma State University students, faculty, and staff, as well as individuals around the community. These included dance classes, conversations with students enrolled in an ethnomathematics course, roundtable discussions with faculty about interdisciplinary research, workshops on how to approach critique in a constructive way using Lerman’s own Critical Response Process, guest lectures to gender and ethnicity courses, demonstrations to student teachers, and even interactive interviews with donors on the process of creating Wicked Bodies (Sonoma). Lerman describes each of these interactions as building toward the performance, whether the experience is directly incorporated into the piece, or indirectly influences the direction of its creation.
     As Lerman continues to generously share her knowledge, passion, and talent, the Green Music Center is gearing up with excitement for the premiere of Wicked Bodies (Sonoma). We are incredibly proud to debut this thoughtful piece, while providing timeless insights to our community. And we are grateful to the many supporters of this piece, including the Hewlett Foundation 50 Arts Commission, and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, which is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.