Performers let their breath resonate and create a field of blurred respiratory noisescapes. Their individual breath signatures interact, barely detectable, creating an atmosphere of diluted presences. BREATHCORE gathers a group of people to explore modes of collectivity through the practice of breathing. Breath is generic and contains a wide spectrum of characteristics - tactile, communicational, sonic.

Collective breath work allows us to prolong and expand one's breath by means of the collective to surpass subjectivity and individuality. Nevertheless breathing is our most intimate good, our foremost and first anarchist action and expression of a free being (once detached from our mothers naval cord). The central question of BREATHCORE is on how to combine these two extremes: How can we breathe together - free individuals merging into a resonating collectivity?

BREATHCORES are without conductor or score and vary in format and form. Rehearsals and public moments are researching synchronization-processes, skill-sharing and non-verbal communication. BREATHCORE is breaking open certain patterns, exploring new ways, looking and listening differently, breathing together. It’s searching to define a new technique where the experience could also be taken as the new technique. Each public moment of BREATHCORE becomes a unique momentary snapshot of the group’s collective qualities.

The project BREATHCORE has been an ongoing investigation of the dynamics of breath within a social, artistic and political context. Michael Schmid initiated the project in the summer of 2015 and has since then organized a number of BREATHCORES for different cultural venues and festivals.

(Michael Schmid)