Out oF AIR
Out oF aiR is a physical performance co-authored together with Asher Lev (ISR/BE), Dancemakers, Amsterdam, Holland, 2016.
OutOf aiR is rooted in a three year interest and investment in experimental somatic practices with a specific concentration around the act of breathing. During the research process, this personal engagement with corporeal awareness has given way to the politics of air as a social invisible (i)material. The research has shifted from being concentrated on breath to a provocative focus on air and its social probelmatics relating to the fact of it being a shared material. This important slide also occurs within the forty five minute long performance. The shift manifests a transition from the individual body to the collective body, or body politic.OutOf aiR is a participatory work and one of the main questions it poses is how we breathe together. One of the mechanisms for inducing/encouraging participation is of a particular kind – necessity. At one point in the work Irina Lavrinovic submerges herself underneath the water and holds her breath. After a few minutes have gone by, while still keeping her clam submerged position underwater, she signals to the spectators that she needs them to give her air by blowing up balloons that they previously received. It is obvious to all that she put herself in this needy and haphazard position and could have chosen differently. But it is also quit clear that her body cannot be sustained much longer in that position without breathing again. While the audience reflects upon the real or artifice of her demand, her time is running out and this part of the choreography is about to collapse. The question the spectators might be asking themselves is should they take response-ability for a situation they did not create, but are nonetheless a part of. Some decide to act and blow up the balloons to supply her with the air she needs. By doing so they help her breathe and stay underwater. They help sustain the structure of the choreography and they participate in it out of necessity located in multiple realms and bodies. But even without this active nature, our invested awareness around the act of breathing creates a latent participation in our choreography of all human bodies present in the room, whether one wants to or no.
OutOf aiR excerpt from IRINA LAVRINOVIČ on Vimeo.