Side Step 2018 | Ligia Lewis: minor matter

minor matter, performed by three dancers, is the second part of Ligia Lewis’ ‘Blue, Red, White’ trilogy. Two discursive apparatuses are at play – blackness and the spectacle. The work unfolds multi-directionally, creating a poetics of dissonance from which questions of representation, 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.

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. In this work, Lewis turns to the color red to materialize thoughts between love and rage. In minor matter the three bodies become animated in different ways and arrive by the end in an impossible desire to be nothing.

You can read Hannah Black's thoughts on the work on 4Columns.

Trailer for minor matter:

https://vimeo.com/197645243

See also Ligia Lewis' interview (includes excerpts from the performance):

https://vimeo.com/199340408