Breathing for Beginners
Live dance performance, 2023 (20 minutes)

Choreography, performance, text and sound | Joy Bernard
Original music | Sag Beim Abschied - Peter Alexander
Artistic accompaniment | Anat Katz
Videography | Shir Lusky
Photos by Efrat Mazor

The work was commissioned to be performed at:
- The Ramat Gan Museum of Art
- The Jerusalem Fringe Festival
- Point of View dance Series at Hanut Theater
- Ta Tarbut / Alfred Gallery

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, in, in, in, in, in!

Breathing is a rather simple physical act, but one that symbolizes the body’s willingness to let the world in (and then back out again). In this work, a dancer explores her panic attacks and inability to breathe, her loss and how it might be linked to historical and family losses.
As she deconstructs the act of breathing and its impact on her movement, she deconstructs Yiddish, a language passed down to her by her father, and love, a physical language she shared with a partner. From laughter to singing, from hyperventilation to utter relaxation, Bernard pushes her body to extremes in order to forget and learn anew the most basic physical mechanism.