In Performance: Ligia Lewis – Minor Matter (American Realness 2017)

Ligia Lewis – Minor Matter (US Premier)

Sunday, January 8, 5pm – SOLD OUT*
Monday, January 9, 7pm – SOLD OUT*
Tuesday, January 10, 4pm – SOLD OUT*

Abrons Arts Center, Experimental Theater
466 Grand Street, Manhattan

Minor Matter is uncomfortable. Rage in the black body is a polarizing subject in black culture. It’s as personal as a secret. Minor Matter explores the various ways black rage manifests and how it effects the community at large. Choreographer/Performer Ligia Lewis and her collaborators Jonathan Gonazalez and Hector Thami Manekehla fuse anger with everything from the mundane to the intimate. Their movement is athletic and powerful. Sometimes you can’t tell if the performers are loving or fighting. Humor feels like a slap. The show uses a limited pallet in evocative ways. It pushes past tropes when you think it’s going to settle. In the final section of the piece, you worry for the performers safety as they climb and mount each other to collapse. This is an apt metaphor for collective anger. If not precise, what you are building topples.

Photo by Dorothea Tuch