Still Not Still is a choreography for seven performers, a writing by bodies that emerges from that dark space that is History for black or non-Western subjectivities. In response to this exclusion from the past, Lewis leverages darkness as a site for critical imaging and imagining. She makes use of the Early musical form of a Complainte – a prolonged lament or musical poem. Through the confluence of comedy and tragedy, Lewis evokes with poetic and comedic force a unique theatrical language full of dark humor and surrealist imagery, disrupting any fantasy of historical progress. Thus, Lewis imagines a world out of time, a world at a standstill.
Can a history full of bad faith, gaps, and holes, particularly for those that fall outside its purview, be left to the past? Can history then, or a particular form of it, be deadened, exposed as a corpse, and stripped of reason? Since history is fallible and insufficient, and overdetermined by its victors, what might emerge once it is laid to rest? “Still Not Still” emerges from these conceptual questions, and, in response, makes an attempt to step to the side of the past.
Still Not Still is part of
PRISMA – Complaint, A Lyric
Ligia Lewis in the city of Rome
Ligia Lewis works as a choreographer and dancer. Lewis’s works, often marked by expressions of physical intensity and humor, 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. Utilizing affect, empathy, and the sensate, her work continues to evoke the nuances of embodiment. 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 other works include: Sensation 1/This Interior (High Line Commission, 2019); so something happened, get over it; no, nothing happened, get with it (Jaou Tunis, 2018); Melancholy: A White Mellow Drama (Flax Fahrenheit, Palais de Tokyo, 2015); $$$ (Tanz im August, 2012); and Sensation 1 (sommer.bar, Tanz im August, 2011 and Basel Liste, 2014). Her work was presented in multiple venues across Europe and the US such as HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin; Tanzquartier, Vienna; MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Kaaitheater, Brussels ; Arsenic, Lausanne ; High Line Art, New York; Performance Space, New York (2019); OGR Torino; Stedelijk, Amsterdam ; TATE Modern, London. Her work has also been presented at festivals and biennials such as the Ruhrtriennale, Bochum, Germany; Tanzplattform, Germany; Politik im Freien Theater Festival, Frankfurt; Liverpool Biennial; the Side Step Festival, Helsinki ; Biennale of Moving Images / Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Diver Festival, Tel Aviv; American Realness, New York; The Donaufestival, Krems, Austria and Julidans, Amsterdam. Lewis is the recipient of the Tabori Award in the category of Distinction (2021); a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants Award (2018); a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production for minor matter (2017); a Factory Artist residency at tanzhaus nrw (2017-19); and a Prix Jardin d’Europe from ImPulsTanz for Sorrow Swag (2015).
concept, choreography, direction Ligia Lewis
In process with and performance by Boglárka Börcsök, Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust, Corey-Scott Gilbert, Cassie Augusta Jørgensen, Justin F. Kennedy, Jolie Ngemi/Ligia Lewis, Damian Rebgetz
dramaturgy Maja Zimmermann
outside Eye Dragana Bulut
lighting design & technical directionJoseph Wegmann
set design Claudia Besuch (Gali)
costume Marta Martino
sound design and compositionS. McKenna
acoustic and electric guitarJoey Gavin Assistance: Lissa-Johanna Volquartz
sound technician (tour) Max Eilbacher, Neda Sanai
stage technician (tour) Şenol Şentürk, Jachya Freeth
production management Hannes Frey, Vera Laube (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)
administration (tour) Sina Kießling, Julia Leonhardt
touring and distributionNicole Schuchardt
production Ligia Lewis / HAU Hebbel am Ufer
co-production tanzhaus nrw (Düsseldorf), Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain (Lausanne), Tanzquartier Wien (Vienna), Black Box Theater (Oslo), Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER (Ghent), Gessnerallee (Zürich), Dance International Glasgow / Tramway
funded by Capital Cultural Fund (Berlin)
supported by NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZInternational Guest Performance Fund for Dance, which is funded byFederal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
ph. Moritz Freudenberg
