Choreographer Isabel Lewis opens with a poetic performance inviting the audience to "glide along her surface" with their gaze, then reflects on how distance and gaps between people aren't just what separates us — they're what makes relation possible, allowing difference to exist without forced unity or false reconciliation. She critiques how "participation" has become an unquestioned virtue in cultural institutions, arguing that invitations are never neutral and can become demands to conform. Instead, she champions "bonds without sameness, intimacy without possession, repair without the promise of reconciliation." In conversation with Xue Tan, she discusses her "hosting occasions" (choreographed situations of hospitality shown at Tate Modern, Kunsthalle Zurich, etc.), and why embodied, sensory experience matters for responding to crisis. She closes by sharing how her Dominican Republic childhood dancing bachata and merengue, her Afro-diasporic and Jewish/Eastern-European heritage, and formal ballet training all layer into her choreographic practice.
“What if the gap is not simply what separates us, but also what makes relation possible? What if distance is necessary for difference to exist?”
— Isabel Lewis
