31st Kalamata International Dance Festival-AGNI PAPADELI ROSSETOU/The Day I Went All The Way Up The Mountain

The performance The Day I Went All the Way Up the Mountain develops around the function of breathing.

The choreography is structured by the dancers according to a score of breaths, which—beyond the texture and rhythm of breathing—determines each body’s movement patterns, as well as how the dancers relate to one another. The body becomes a vessel, whose form and motion arise from the way air flows in and out of it, often to the point of extremity.

The piece seeks to simultaneously convey two dimensions of this involuntary and vital function: on one hand, its technical, mechanistic aspect—where air is the fuel of the body-as-machine, and the body is subjected to an unbroken sequence of inhalations and exhalations; and on the other hand, a more poetic dimension, in which breath becomes the breath of life, allowing for the emergence of images, moments, and relationships between the two bodies.

The duet The Day I Went All the Way Up the Mountain, with the childlike tone evoked by its title, alludes to the effects that such an ascent has on the body—the states it must pass through in order to make it all the way to the top. At the same time, on an imaginary level, the mountain’s relief mirrors that of the body—especially when carved by breath, and thus, by time.