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 ARCOS

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The List Guides - Festival Festival Dance - Previews The Warriors: A Love Story Multimedia ensemble captures wartime romance Sifting through a trunk of mementoes after his grandmother's death, a young musician starts to see his grandparents through different eyes. When they fell in love; how she, a young German dancer, survived the 1945 bombing of Dresden; their postwar life in America. It's a story of courage, humanity and love - made all the more potent because it's true. Based on the lives of Glenn and Ursula Gray, The Warriors: A Love Story is the latest work by Texas-based company, ARCOS. Choreographed by Curtis Uhlemann and Erica Gionfriddo, the script, music and video come courtesy of Eliot Gray Fisher - the grandson of Glenn and Ursula. Used to creating work inspired by movement, music and ideas, this was a new challenge for the choreographers. 'Working from a true story was hard to wrap our heads around at first,' Gionfriddo admits. 'We quickly realised, however, that we weren't recounting events as a documentary would, rather telling Eliot's story from our perspective.' Interviews with those who knew Glenn and Ursula formed part of their research. 'We are losing survivors from that era,' says Gionfriddo, 'and this personal viewpoint must continue to be told before it gets lost in the history books that record presidents, chancellors and generals, but not the countless regular people who were swept up in the broad scope of war.' Known for its astute use of interactive video and multimedia, ARCOS has learned to strike a fine balance between onstage and on-screen action. 'Our challenge is to use enough new media to be relevant to contemporary audiences,' says Gionfriddo, 'but use it differently enough so they have an undeniably "live" experience in the theatre.' (Kelly Apter) Zoo Southside, 662 6892, 3 -24 Aug, 8.30pm, £12 (£10. Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £8. The List Festival, 31 July-7 August 2014, page 54