“All that is dark, potential, and quiet”: Riding the hinge in the witch's dance

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the witch's dance through the lens of Jahra “Rager” Wasasala's bloo/d/runk (2016) and Liz Lerman's Wicked Bodies (2020) whose invocation of the witch through the moving body, I argue, goes beyond merely metaphorical or esthetic applications, but enacts a certain dramaturgical function as a hinging threshold, a dynamic site of negotiation between material and immaterial forces. In my analysis, I sketch the contours of a hinge‐analytic called “riding the hinge,” seeking suspension in the hinges of performance in order to account for how invisible forces assume presence on stage through the figure of the witch as she dances. “Riding the hinge,” I argue, is a practice performed by choreographers who engage the transformational presencing power of the body of the witch in performance, as well as a critical methodology for analyzing such works.