Sylphides

Vacuum-sealed into black latex bags borrowed from the SM imagination, the bodies of the sylphs evoke tomb effigies, cocoons of obscure material, or body bags. The piece presents a perceptual enigma, skillfully slipping from ancient statuary to Body Art. This Portrait gives new life to Sylphides, the first mythical piece co-created by Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud in 2009, performed here as a choral and immersive version.

Sylphs, spirits of the air in 18th-century literature and embodied in the famous 19th-century ballet, La Sylphide, evoke an imaginary of grace and lightness, as well as the possibility of a bodily envelope freed from mortal flesh. By questioning this mythological ground, the duo creates a performance that disrupts our perception of the body, starting with a redefinition of the relationship between surface and inner nature. Protected by a vacuum-tight latex membrane, their sheathed silhouettes, like malleable forms, are transformed by the ceremony of suction and breathing that enlivens them. For this extended version performed at the Grand Palais, numerous figures bring this tale of death and rebirth to life.