A Plot / A Scandal
A plot exposed, a foul deed enacted invites scandal. In the spirit of revolution or romantic musings, scandals provoke an imagining of the impossible. Utopian or mundane, how might scandal reveal what lies unwittingly close to our fantasies? And how does it expose where society places its limits? If life is a scandal waiting to be plotted, how do we position ourselves within its matrix? Immoral and lacking propriety, scandals are incidents where fantasy and pleasure take center stage. Guided by the questions of whom this pleasure is for and at what expense, Lewis’s new plot explores the stage where scandals abound.
Weaving together historical, anecdotal, political, and mythical narratives − ranging from an interest in the Enlightenment thinker John Locke, Maria Olofa (Wolofa) in the slave revolt of Santo Domingo in 1521, Cuban artist and revolutionary José Aponte, and Lewis’s great grandmother, a figure Lewis turns to within her plot as a guide of resistance − the choreographer constructs the poetics of refusal at the edges of representation. A dance between affect and embodiment, seeing and being seen, A Plot / A Scandal is a scene in the making where the excitement for that which does not fit might find its place.
works as a choreographer and dancer. Lewis’s works, often marked by expressions of physical intensity and humour, seek to animate subjects through physical forms of expression that disrupt normative conceptions of the body while negotiating the ghostly traces of history, memory, and the unknown. Through choreography, she develops expressive concepts that give form to movements, speech, affects, thoughts, relations, utterances, and the bodies that hold them. She is the recipient of the Tabori Award in the category of Distinction, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants Award, and a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production. Lewis recently finished works including A Plot / A Scandal (2022), Still Not Still (2021), deader than dead (film and live performance, 2020), the trilogy including Water Will (in Melody) (2018), minor matter (2016), and Sorrow Swag (2014). Her most recent works shown at TQW were Still not Still and Sensation 1.
Credits
Concept, choreography, artistic direction, text Ligia Lewis Performance Ligia Lewis Choreographic assistance, alternating performer Corey Scott-Gilbert, Justin Kennedy Research, dramaturgy Sarah Lewis-Cappellari Research Michael Tsouloukidse Lighting design, technical direction Joseph Wegmann Music composition, sound design George Lewis Jr aka Twin Shadow & Wynne Bennett Voice-over George Lewis Jr aka Twin Shadow Sound technician Manuel Pessoa de Lima Set design Ligia Lewis Costume SADAK Stage technician Şenol Şentürk Production, administration Sina Kießling Production, distribution Nicole Schuchardt Production assistance Julia Leonhardt Production Ligia Lewis Co-production HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Ruhrtriennale, Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain (Lausanne), Tanzquartier Wien, Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER (Gent), Kaserne Basel, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis).With the residency support of Callie’s, O Espaço do Tempo. Supported by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ Coproduction Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
In English