CANCELLED | A Breath Cycle

This show has been cancelled and rescheduled to season 2017-2018.

From one breath piece to another

The visual artist Fabrice Samyn presents five of his seven Breath Pieces, which take breathing as their starting point. To the rhythm of the breathing, a number of different actions are performed that intensify your awareness of time, while attention is focused on all that is fundamental and uncontrollable about breathing. The five Breath Pieces – of which several are being premiered at Performatik – are performed in various different spaces at Kaaistudios. Guided by a handbook, you move from one breath piece to another. Some Breath Pieces have a clearly demarcated beginning and end, while it’s for you to decide how long you spend at others.

• Fabrice Samyn’s work is highly diverse, both formally (from painting and photography to sculptures and installations) and thematically (time and light, idolatry vs. iconoclasm, etc.) His research into time draws inspiration from a whole series of conceptual, pictorial and spiritual traditions. Galerij Meessen De Clercq presents his visual work in Belgium.

Breath Piece 1
Light’s threshold
In a dark space, a young girl and an old woman sit side by side at a table, upon which stands a candle. As though in a hushed shrine, they repeat a simple action that combines light and breath. Until the moment when one of the performers reaches a physical boundary.

Breath Piece 4
Being Cloud
During this performance, the intimacy of breath is linked to the grandeur of the sky. A blind man who has never seen a cloud is asked to make clouds to the rhythm of his own breath.

Breath Piece 5
Undressing Time
Fabrice Samyn asked the choreographer and dancer Manon Santkin the following question: which everyday movement can you perform (and undo again) to the rhythm of your breath? Manon’s reply: the act of dressing and undressing.

Breath Piece 6
Vanity’s Ballroom
A series of couples dance a waltz. They rewrite the music (Shostakovich’s Waltz N° 2) to the rhythm of their breathing.

Breath Piece 7
The Womb
One by one, you enter a space where a number of couples await you. They fold you in their arms and tune their breathing into yours. They offer you an experience that is comparable to the symbiosis in the womb.