A Matter of life and Breath (premiere 2011)

The piece Matter of Life and Breath explores the choreographer's relationship with breath as well as the dancers' relationship with the latter. An interactive technology will contribute to the work as short images will be projected on the screen as a response to the dancers movements and breaths. Inspired by Freuchen's story and winter's breath, projections filmed during the cold Canadian climate will form a strong visual element for the piece.

Peter Freuchen, the famous arctic explorer, was trapped by a blizzard in northern Greenland. Then, he built an igloo to wait out the storm, but the walls of the igloo were gradually closing in on him as his breath was freezing to the walls. Every breath made the walls thicker and thicker and the igloo became smaller and smaller up to the point there where no more room was left for his body. He was breathing himself into a coffin of ice. Freuchen could not live if he had not breathed, yet he had not lived if he did not breathe. The very thing he needed to keep alive was the instrument of his destruction.