On cue, a gaggle of dramatic folk will pretend they’ve been shot in slow motion, raise their arms, sink to the sidewalk. Someone will chalk their outline on the concrete, just like a crime scene. It’s all been choreographed by a Broadway performer, say organizers of an upcoming demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial to “create a visual reflection of the destruction caused by gun violence.”

Or something like that.

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“Artists have a responsibility to create work that elicits a response. Artists have the power to initiate empathy and introspection - a first step toward changing attitudes,” said Lorin Latarro, a Broadway choreographer and performer, who is leading the big show.

Tourists should be intrigued, no doubt. Maintenance folks and law enforcement, perhaps, not so much.

About 100 artists will gather at the Memorial’s reflecting pool on Sunday to leave a mark, “literally,” the dancer explains.

“At a singular moment, the performers will freeze their hands in the air, then slowly melt to the floor in a lifeless position. The participants will trace an outline of their bodies with chalk and write a word or statistic inside the form such as ‘gun, Kate, age 6; Enough, 30,000 a year.’ The result is a visceral, expressionistic, literary reminder of countless lives lost,” Ms. Latarro says.

The group is called Artists against Gun Violence (ARTAMMO.org) and they’re taking their show on the road to six cities. Their motto: “All it costs is chalk.”