Artist Talk: With Ligia Lewis, Moderated By Chris Cyrille

Is a plot a structure of subjection or a minimal space of resistance? Is a plot a place of possession and dispossession or a refuge, a refusal? Is a plot the embodiment of History or a fragmentation of different novels and tales? And how do we negotiate the in-between: the property and the impropriety, the scandal and the mundane, the in-betweenness of the concept of Creoleness? In the end, what is a plot? Chris Cyrille will discuss these questions in the context of the work A Plot, A Scandal, by and with the artist, choreographer and dancer Ligia Lewis.

Chris Cyrille is a poet, writer, and exhibition-storyteller living between Guadeloupe and France. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Philosophy, and Aesthetics at Paris 8 University and has worked for several French and international magazines. His research is focused on anti-colonial and Caribbean literature. He is one of the founders of the project Mangrovité and is currently pursuing research on the Second Congress of Black Artists and Writers. He previously curated two re-activations of the congress in Florence (Villa Romana; The Recovery Plan).

Ligia Lewis (b. 1983 in Santo Domingo) works as an artist, choreographer, and dancer, conceiving and directing experimental performances. Her works have been presented on stages, galleries, museums, as film or installations. Lewis’s works are often marked by physical and emotional intensities in which comedy and tragedy collide. Through her work, the performer and the audience confront a confluence of processes that disrupt normative conceptions of the body as she negotiates the ghostly traces of history and memory. In the Fall of 2023, she presented her first solo exhibition, study now steady at CARA in NYC (US) as well as a survey of her stage works at HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin, DE). In 2023 Ligia Lewis was the Rome Short Theatre Festival’s Prisma artist. Lewis recently finished works including: A Plot / A Scandal (2022), Still Not Still (2021), deader than dead (2020), Sensation 1 / This Interior (High Line Commission, 2019), the trilogy: Water Will (in Melody) (2018), so something happened, get over it; no, nothing happened, get with it (2018), minor matter (2016), and Sorrow Swag (2014). 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). Lewis lives and works in Berlin.