ARCOS home

︎︎︎

PDF LINK

The Gazette, gazette.com 2014 Pulitzer Prize, National Reporting Serving Colorado Springs & the Pikes Peak Region since 1872 Friday, September 4, 2015, $1.50 Stage "The Warriors: a Love Story" By ARCOS Dance, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado College, free, tickets at Worner Center Desk, 902 N. Cascade Ave.; 389-6606, coloradocollege.edu. Many of us only know our grandparents during the last decades of their lives, and sometimes not even then. Eliot Gray Fisher, a multimedia artist and teacher, is no exception. His grandfather, Glenn Gray, a Colorado Springs resident who fought in World War II and taught philosophy at Colorado College, died before Fisher was born. His grandmother, Ursula Gray, a dance instructor at Colorado College, exchanged letters with her grandson until she died in 2009. She frequently told him how much he reminded her of her late husband. Fisher's curiosity was piqued. "I started thinking about legacies and the generations and a lot about family, which we all do as we come into adulthood," he says. "I started to think about who she was when she was younger and in an attempt to get to know my grandfather better." Fisher, along with choreographers Curtis Uhlemann and Erica Gionfriddo, founded ARCOS Dance in Austin, Texas. The trio combined choreography, original music, archival footage, real family heirlooms, excerpts from Fisher's grandfather's journal and published philosophy books and interactive video projections to portray the story of his grandparents in "The Warriors: A Love Story." The free multimedia performance, starring five dancers and Fisher as pianist and narrator, will visit Cornerstone Arts Center on Friday and Saturday. "The show is my search for who they were and what their legacy is," Fisher says, "and as their grandson what does that mean to me? Here we all are in the 21st century. Things are very different than their era and generation. They're disappearing very rapidly." What fascinated Fisher about his grandparents was their love - not just romantic love, but love for the world. "They weren't in the history books," he says, "but for me the takeaway is we can all act in ways that might stand against the worst destruction that our civilization can wreak. It's the small things. You can commit your life to something that is a series of small acts toward peace." Jennifer Mulson, The Gazette, 636-0270, jen.mulson@gazette.com ARCOS Dance will present "The Warriors: A Love Story" at Cornerstone Arts Center on Friday and Saturday. The multimedia performance combines choreography, original music, archival footage and more. Photo courtesy ARCOS Dance.