Inspired by an actual family legacy, The Warriors: A Love Story confronts the disturbing beauty and profound devastation of war. Searching through his grandmother’s trunk after her death, Eliot, a young musician, is transported into the past by the physical mementos he encounters. Moment after fractured moment reveal the intertwined lives of Ursula, a German dancer and survivor of the Allied bombing of Dresden, and Glenn, an American philosopher and war veteran.

An ensemble of dancers, archival media, interactive video projections, and live music conjure up an entire universe emerging from a single small trunk: Plato’s allegory of the Cave; all-too-seductive military indoctrination; an adventurous modern dancer’s horrific flight through her burning city; the philosophy professor’s struggle to make sense of chaos; daily experience of contemporary drone pilots; the courtship of former “enemies” in postwar Munich; and a soldier’s epiphany upon nearly shooting his own reflection in an abandoned farmhouse in France. As the living memory of the older generations fade, The Warriors: A Love Story seeks to acknowledge the lives of those affected by war and honor the strength of those who act to end it.

The Warriors: A Love Story toured for four years after its premiere at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, NM, including an award-winning run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and returning “home” to Colorado Springs and the halls of Colorado College, where its real-life inspirations Glenn and Ursula lived out their personal philosophies together. From 2015, ARCOS partnered with local veteran organizations, volunteering and elevating the complex stories of those who live through warfare and how we take care of each other afterward.