As with his two previous productions at the Arsenic, Angels in America and Orphelins, Philippe Saire’s approach to directing relies on the physical presence of the actors, weaving a physical score with the text, which generates a particular style and a high level of commitment from the actors.
This economic and sentimental fable begins with a misunderstanding. Dana, living in Berlin, falls in love with an unsavoury, demonic man who expects her to engage in paid sex, but she refuses. The result is a road-movie-like chase through Europe, taking in hotels, trains, and boats from one city to the next. Resembling a screenplay, the play is made up of as many scenes as there are places, like a jigsaw puzzle whose initial discord will reverse the established order.
Europe is collapsing, the flows are reversing and migrants are flocking to Africa.
Dana leaves behind a world that is crumbling, and quickly abandons her certainties against a backdrop of reversed power relations between North and South, precariousness and security, like a kind of immunity that is running out.
Drawing on the myth of Faust, the arrogance of the old world, and the migratory and financial crises, Zinnie Harris brings these themes into play to echo a contemporary world in tension. Comment retenir sa respiration (How to Hold Your Breath) combines the idea of transaction, debt, and disarray, linking the intimate with the universal, while adopting a variety of tones: sometimes epic, sometimes tragic, sometimes light-hearted or magical, as if to emphasise a kind of life force.

Philippe Saire was born in Algeria and spent the first five years of his life there. He later moved to Lausanne where he studied and trained in contemporary dance before going abroad – including a spell in Paris – to pursue his training. In 1986, he created his own dance company in the Lausanne area, which went on to develop its own creative repertoire and actively contributed to the emergence of contemporary dance throughout Switzerland. So far, some 30 creations have been produced and more than 1,800 performances have been given in over 200 cities around the world.