Embodied Breath Lessons

Embodied Breath Lessons (2020 and 2021) adapts my two-person breathing piece (Collective Breath) into a solo performance practice in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Held as one-on-one sessions in the outdoor Pavilion of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, this work merges performance, instruction, and therapeutic practice. Participants learn a continuous breath and movement technique, inflating an object made of plastic to create a ‘second body’ from their own breath. As the inflatable form grows, participants can physically surrender their weight into it, offering a unique form of self-contact and intimacy in a time when physical touch was scarce. Embodied Breath Lessons shifts from shared intimacy to self-intimacy, and served as an antidote to the isolation and anxiety so many were experiencing during this time.