Elämänhenkäys: Breath&Fire 25/11

32 sec. acts for Transformation

On 19th-20th of August 2023, Anna Lindh Foundation Austrian network members took part in the round table sessions at the ALF Brussels pavilion during the Festival Theatre Nomades in Brussels, Belgium.

As a member of the national network, ACD-Agency for Cultural Diplomacy association team was invited to join the meetings and present the proposed activities, with the kind support of the ALF Austria leader Ms. Sophie Reichelt, and the ALF Brussel-team members.
With the best impressions from the meeting, and with our cordial thanks to organizers, all attendees, and contributors who supported this attempt at one of the most challenging causes worldwide: relational violence -in particular femicide and hate speech, through artistic methodology, we would like to share some more details about our presentation as following:

After an introductory presentation of the ACD-association president Tatjana Christelbauer on initiatives related to UN SDGs and the art installation presented in the ALF pavilion,
the interactive dance meditation with participants “Elämänhenkäys: Breath & fire 25/11”& 32 acts for transformation"  took part. The insights and the topic resonated with the theme of the Anna Lindh Foundation mission and the meeting agenda aimed to enhance Intercultural Dialogue on current global challenges, connected with relational violence, in particular with hate speech. 
The content of the art installation and Featherflight performance acts derives from the project series Dance meditations 2030...   
Grounded in the Belgian/French philosopher Luce Irigaray's notion of "The age of breath" which teaches us to awaken to a new ethical constellation in which we make breath awareness essential to an embodied ethics of difference in our globalized, ecological age through the practice of planetarylove, the art installation 
was composed of 2 silk scarves ("lungwings") and 6 insulation tubes of foam connected with nylon thread in the form of a breathing system accompanied by orange feathers for 32 respiratory acts during the dance meditation with participants.

Connecting Irigaray´s approach with lyrical philosophy grounded in the Sonnets of the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the UN Agenda2030

Guiding tools for exploring the notion of “breathing with the world” through somatic practices are the following:
guided imagination by thought experiment, dance meditation, and the respiratory syllabus with the Orange Feather enabled an experience of the embodied manifestation of the inner world, and thoughts are visualized through breath that emerge visible by Featherflow
“in counterpoise with our own being. Interchange in which (I) we rhythmically emerge.” (R.M.Rilke Sonnet1 part II)

The performance proposes to explore the gestures as receivers and transmitters for a dialogue of change. This sensate experience invites attentive movement and awareness of being with, moving with, breathing with, practicing #planetarylove, a love that invites us to address a more complex topology without limiting our imagination in the realm of the geographical-legal border, local or global, while evoking the presence of Elämänhenkäys (“breath of life” in Finnish) in and out of rhythm with each other and in dialogue with the movement of air carried by Feather. It is a call to action and a social climate lament.

Inclusion of the Finnish term Elämänhenkäys  (“breath of life”) into the title of the art project session, is aimed to shift the perception toward some unexpected, unknown, emerging act (such as the appearance of the Orange Feather) that may activate imaginative waves (for those who are not speaking Finnish, but also by those who understand and may wonder about the role of the term in this artwork).
Inspiration for "breath of life" was found in the Finnish movie title “Anerca, Breath of life” (2020) of the Finnish actor and cinematographer Markku Lehmuskallio who has devoted a large part of his documentary work to the indigenous people of the Arctic Circle. In this latest film, co-directed with his son Johannes Lehmuskallio, he composes a fascinating poetic ethnography inspired by the singing, dancing, forms of contemporary existence and, above all, the vital breath of these nomad communities mistreated by History: https://www.visionsdureel.ch/en/film/2020/anerca-breath-of-life/

Organized by the Compagnie des Nouveaux Disparus, the Nomadic Theatre Festival aims to be diverse and cosmopolitan to arouse surprise and curiosity. Every year, more than 35 companies come together from different artistic fields: street art, theatre, circus, storytelling, dance, puppetry, etc. The program gives a high priority to Belgian creativity and young artists in particular but also wants to invite some international companies.
The presentations and round table talks at the ALF pavilion during the Festival have contributed to its international spirit and diversity of expressions through intercultural dialogues and art.

Breath&Fire 25/11 ...
Grounded in the perception of art as a place for beings of this Earth to breathe and to share the air within a new elemental-spiritual conspiracy of love.(Skof 2022 ) and artistic engagement as a somatic practice, that enables “breath & fire” in “the place of inner horizontal calm being gathered and cultivated in us by fire (ibid), the composition of artworks is envisioned to contribute as an attempt to relational cultures being permeated by flames of violence, with tools for recovery, while re-imagining, re-thinking conditions and direct connection of air and breath. According to Irigaray, “the new humanity will only be reborn from the body, heart, breath, listening, speech and mind—and this will materialize through an exchange of relational gesture.” (ibid).

Political stage: art inTalk2030…
Increasing acts of violence around the world, such as the current wars, femicide, hate speech leading to suicide, and calls for peace and peacebuilding are growing louder.
Governments around the world are arming their armies, powerful defense forces are being demonstrated, and investments in war industries are rapidly growing.

With methods from artistic disciplines, an attempt was made to reflect on one's own experiences with violence in relational cultures and to look for ways in which peace of mind can be guided and achieved through creative activities and meditative sequences.
Re-thinking tensions by ethical imagination (thinking about legal consequences and prospects)
In a wider sense, situating the participatory experience in the framework for the prevention of violence as well as for the treatment of trauma-related conditions, the Featherflight acts can be explored as a movement-based therapy that is effective in restoring the intrinsic capacity for orienting to others, and for positive affective responding, and positive self-environment relationship through somatic sensory experience.
Activating thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation as responsible faculties for various mental phenomena, such as perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, and emotion with respiratory exercises such as Featherflight-acts, guided imagination by thought experiments and dance meditation engages the body through a purposeful, playful sensorial act that taps the embodied experiences of narrative or logical expression in a dialogical process with self and other, transforming fury attempts into dialogical acts, mentally, emotionally, physically, like turning the 32 fouettes in ballet. 
Connecting spiritual dimension across lines of the Scripts,
"“There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm”  (Hadith 32), while, "blessed is one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Psalm 32)

The Orange Feather Initiativeis aimed to support the UN Women initiative and the global endeavors toward ending & preventing further violence against women and all forms of violence in relational cultures through art-based educational sessions on responsible acting, holding on, before speaking harm & acting violently, overcoming egomania, erotomania, pride &prejudices, learning to accept unrequited love, to improve communicational skills, to promote and to practice peaceful relations & relationships, starting by self.
Our next presentation will take part in the Vienna Votivchurch on the 29th of September at 3 p.m. as a part of the Bibel-Pfad all-day event. 
A cordial invitation to take part, engage, and support further Featherflights toward more peaceful relational cultures.

Quellen: Škof, L. Democracy of Breath and Fire: Irigarayan Meditations. SOPHIA 61, 117–133 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-022-00911-6
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11841-022-00911-6
R.M. Rilke, "Sonnets to Orpheus" (poetry collection)
Luce Irigaray, "Sharing the Fire" 
Luce Irigaray, "The Way of Love"