Souffle

"A striking, exquisitely composed choreographic work that embodies both the lightness and transience of being and the existential awareness of a great shared movement in breath, voice and dance. A captivating magic runs through this choreographic and musical production, imbued with a sensitive dance quality. ‘souffle’ perhaps symbolises and stands for the many years Brigitte Meuwly and Antonio Bühler have spent working together, for their inexhaustibility. DA MOTUS! is highly admired internationally as a company that again and again opens up new and original gateways to dance, especially with its outdoor projects." (Brigitta Luisa Merki, member of the Federal Dance Jury, Swiss Dance Awards 2015) Brigitte Meuwly and Antonio Bühler were invited by Philippe Savoy, director of the Chamber Chorus Zeugma, to create an artistic collaboration, inspired by the local (Fribourg), choral tradition. They have risen to the challenge of uniting contemporary choreography and vocal creation based on an original score, composed by Caroline Charrière, around the fundamental role that breath represents for both modes of expression : dance and song. The dancers start to move their bodies into a symbolic journey of life, brought alive by their breathing, the essence of our existence. Breath is incarnated into the dancers and finds its resonance and vitality as it courses through their bodies. Spontaneous harmonies and orchestrated tensions emerge, generating bizarre images and sometimes provoking ambiguous sensations. The ethereal and celestial quality of the singing essentially clashes with the carnal and sensual character of the dance. « souffle » suggests to us through certain of its movements, that it is through the sexual union that the spirit is able to incarnate. Dance and music work together in osmosis, counterpoint and complicity. Thus, bodies and voices are attracted and repelled, stimulating exchanges and emotions to reach the ephemeral realms, where everything is dissolved, where breath leaves its earthly form to regain its unknowable origin.