Guernica Dances… is both a depiction and an expression of war. The title is derived from Picasso’s legendary mural Guernica (1937), a passionate memorial to the horrific destruction of the Spanish town of the same name by a fleet of Hitler’s military bombers. When I first beheld the enormous painting, I was immediately struck dumb by the thought that men were capable of wreaking such destruction upon other men. But more importantly, I was astonished when I realized what Picasso had done: he revealed the fundamental purity and lyricism at the heart of such an atrocity. He had, in effect illuminated and sublimated the powerful dance of war.

In 1994, this understanding was given a more personal meaning. My piano teacher, Ellen Weckler, collapsed under a devastating resurgence of cancer that had previously lain in remission for 15 years. She was a young, boisterous, and beautifully talented musician. Despite the physical and mental ravages undergone in her struggle against this disease, her spirit grew stronger and more open to the possibility that there was some larger meaning behind all of this, a meaning which she was unaware of. Despite the fact that her body was turning completely against itself - becoming one tremendous contradiction - she never lost her glorious artistic power to discover and reveal the poetry beneath the madness. In my mind, I can still see her big eyes, wide open, courageously watching, learning her opponent’s movements, and they compel me to look deeper than superficial antagonisms in order to understand that war is actually an INTERACTION of opposites. In the grandest sense, WAR IS PURE. It is this purity of conflict which I now seek to convey. Using two pianos, both at odds with each other as well as mutual participants in a bloody game, I reawaken the spirit of war to show how Guernica dances...