Performance | minor matter by Ligia Lewis

Saturday, October 26th, | 9:00pm, and Sunday, October 27th, 2019 | 8:00pm at Al Madina Theatre

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minor matter is the second part of the trilogy BLUE, RED, WHITE performed by three dancers. Two discursive apparatuses are at play—blackness and the black box. In this work, Lewis turns to the color red to materialize thoughts between love and rage. The work unfolds multi-directionally, creating a poetics of dissonance from which questions of re-presentation, presentation, abstraction, and the limits of signification emerge. Throughout the choreography, the performers push their bodies against the boundaries of the stage while simultaneously illustrating a humble relationship between their bodies and the space that encapsulates it. The performers get exhausted as their bodies strip the stage of its formal mystique to approach its matter—black. In minor matter, sound travels across musical epochs to arrive at the poetics of the intimate present. Built on the logic of interdependence, the theater’s parts—light, sound, image, and architecture—become entangled with the three performers, giving life to a vibrant social and poetic space.

Concept and choreography: Ligia Lewis; Performance: Corey-Scott-Gilbert, Ligia Lewis, Keyon Gaskin (developed with Jonathan Gonzalez, Hector Thami Manekehla); Additional cast (replacements): Jolie Ngemi, Tiran Willemse; Musical dramaturgy: Michal Libera & Ligia Lewis; Styling: Alona Rodeh; Sound design: Jassem Hindi; Sound technician: Neda Sanai; Light design: Andreas Harder; Light technician: Joseph Wegmann; Dramaturgy: Ariel Efraim Ashbel; Text with quotation of the poem “Dreamtalk” by Remi Raji; Assistance: Martha Glenn; Production management (tour): HAU Artist Office / Sabine Seifert; Touring and distribution: HAU Artist Office / Nicole Schuchardt

Production: Ligia Lewis 

Co-production: HAU Hebbel am Ufer

Funded by: Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V.. 

Residency support: FD-13, PACT Zollverein, 8:tension/Life Long Burning, collective address.

This presentation is made possible with the support of  Goethe-Institut Libanon and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ligia Lewis is a dancer and choreographer. Engaging with affect, empathy, and the sensate, her choreography considers the social inscriptions of the body while evoking its potentiality. Her work can be described as experientially rich and complex. Within her practice, Lewis continues to provoke the nuances of embodiment. In 2017, Lewis was awarded a Bessie for Outstanding Production for minor matter, and the Prix Jardin d’Europe for Sorrow Swag. In 2018, she was granted a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award in the field of dance. Water Will (in Melody) (2018), minor matter (2016), and Sorrow Swag (2014) continue to tour internationally. As a dancer, Lewis has performed and toured extensively for artists including Ariel Efraim Ashbel, Mette Ingvartsen, and Eszter Salamon. She has collaborated with visual artist Wu Tsang, musical artist Twin Shadow, and with the DJ collective NON Worldwide. Ligia Lewis is currently managed and produced by HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin and she is a factory artist at tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf.

This event is part of Home Works 8: A Forum on Cultural Practices.

Photo by Julia Cervantes