Amy Lewis uses performance to examine history and presence the celebration of a flawed humanity. For Lewis, the overhaul of history contains the benefit of making ordinary events seem extraordinarily fated, faulting social structures that provide limited choice. Her choreography continually references individual biographies, public, private, or imagined, reinvented in order to influence movement, creating a dichotomy between unemotional, pattern-driven choreography, and linear, dramatic stories. As life is lived through the body, dance becomes an ideal form for expressing what is carried on the inside and presented out.
Lewis is primarily concerned with the “everyday”, i.e. boring, mundane events in one’s life that aren’t considered noteworthy. She continually looks for ways to acknowledge and refer to the usual, in order to capture a certain aspect of reality in an abstract form.
Lewis began presenting choreography in the Bay Area in 2005, after receiving a BA in theater from UCLA and an MFA in dance from Mills College. Working as an individual artist, Lewis’ work has been presented by Women’s Work (Shotwell Studios), West Wave Dance Festival, 2006 and 2008 (Project Artaud Theater and YBCA), Dumbo Dance Festival (John Ryan Theater, Brooklyn, NY), and ODC’s Pilot Program (ODC Theater). In 2007, she founded Push Up Something Hidden, and has since created four seasons of work, shown at various venues in San Francisco, such as Dance Mission Theater, CELLspace, and Community Music Center. The cultivation of an artistic relationship with composer Bill Wolter has led Lewis to strive to accompany choreography with live music. Lewis’ most recent commission was to create a performed walking tour of the Tendernob by Meridian Gallery, as part of the hundred-year anniversary of the building. She has received support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation.