unbearable lightness

Overview

unbearable lightness is a series of reflections and a sonic love letter to the lightness of being alive. It begins as an exploration of breath with a lightweight object: a latex balloon. As the balloon gives shape to breath, playful opportunities emerge for breath to give shape to the body and for the body to find its dance.

With over 100 offerings from rebellious circus, delicious dance, fearless theater and activist art to workshops, parties, and more Cannonball pushes the boundaries of live performance at four different venues this Fringe. Come as you are and stay past bedtime. Blaze your own trail at cannonballfestival.org.Learn More

About the Artist

J. Alex Mathews is a performer, dancer, and maker based in Brooklyn who explores the intimacies of materiality, the strangeness of fleeting encounters, and the overlooked possibilities of aloneness. Her current project in devotion is entitled unbearable lightness. The opening was performed at the Center for Performance Research in May 2024, and a fuller-length solo will be presented at the Philadelphia Cannonball Fringe Festival this September. Other work has previously been shared at Movement Research (2018, 2019) and prior to living in New York, she had work presented throughout Los Angeles: Avenue 50 Studio, Highway Performance Space, HomeLA, Electric Lodge, Pieter Performance Space, and online with Dancer Citizen Live: Moving the Map. She received a Fellowship through Metabolic Studio called Animating the Archives: the Woman's Building (2016); her project STRIKE/LIGHT was featured in Art and Cake Magazine and ARTNews. She was an Artist-in-Residence with Motive Brooklyn (2023) and continues as a Space Grantee (2024). Additional residency experiences include the performing arts forum (p-af) in France and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada. Alongside her life as an artist, J. Alex Mathews has an extensive career as an arts practitioner working with individual artists and organizations in company management and creative producing. She earned a MFA in Performance & Performance Studies at Pratt Institute and a MA from the Institute for Curatorial Practice at Wesleyan University.