Summer Solstice Happening June 21, 2023, 6:08 – 8:08 pm at Taller Alturas
Los Angeles, California
Sophie Dupont “Performing Breath” 06/21/23 Press ReleaseAngelenos are warmly invited to join @PraxinoscopeX presenting “Performing Breath” by internationally-acclaimed artist Sophie Dupont, an interactive and immersive installment in her ongoing work in “Breath Activism.”
Dupont’s latest undertaking, “Performing Breath” will be presented in Los Angeles, California during the last two hours of the longest day of the year, June 21, 2023 — from 6:08 until sunset at 8:08 pm.
Dupont’s performance examines the ritualistic repetition of the most basic expression of life: the breath. With the breath as the starting point for her performances, she reduces the distance between art and life — as well as artist and audience.
The breath can be seen as source of life, personal power, political resistance, and spiritual practice. Spirit is, quite literally, the breath. From the breath, we receive our inspiration. Each inhale brings the exterior world inside us — transformed by our bodies into pure creative energy.
Each exhale carries an expression of ourselves — shared with others. Breath is words. Breath is song. Breath is feeling. Exasperation in anger. Exhilaration in excitement. Sigh in defeat. Guffaw in laughter. Whimper in sadness. Coo in surprise. Shriek in fear. Hoot, Woot and Whoop in joy.
Through several previous iterations of performing breath, Dupont’s work has been evolving to take the form of “Breath Activism” — grounded in Audre Lorde’s concepts, proposed in her essay, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” where Lorde states: “I feel, therefore I am free.”
To take back our breath and claim the breath for ourselves is an act of resistance. We resist the ever-expanding, artificially-constructed paradigm made by the hawkers of commercial distractions who offer to take our breath away every second of the day.
As Lorde reminds us in “”Learning from the 60s” how important it is “[n]ot to believe that revolution is a one-time event, or something that happens around us rather than inside of us.” [Emphasis added.]
Respiration constantly connects our inner and outer worlds in resonance with specific surroundings. Breathing takes place in the present, bridging between the past and the future connecting people with space and place. “We forget that the necessary ingredient needed to make the past work for the future is our energy in the present, metabolizing one into the other.” Lorde, Ibid.
The breath is free and available to everyone alive — to notice, to energize, and to coordinate with others. Along with the heartbeat, breathing forms the flow state of life’s rhythm. We are “breathing being bodies,” according to Luce Irigaray.
The breath is always situated and site specific, following the moods of the body and the company we keep. We share molecules and microbes within minutes with all the people around us. The recent pandemic reminded us that what we carry inside us is actually contagious — Fear and Disease as well has Love and Joy.
Photos by Maria Ramirez-Adam Film by Arthur James
