From Dancers to Underwater Performers
In 2020, I had my first collaboration with an incredible performer and freediver, Ariadna Hafez, for the project Tango. But it's in 2022 that, for the very first time, I had the chance to create with Rose Molina Barrios, and for the very first time, I was collaborating with a person combining two incredible skills: a professional dancer with decades of experience, and a professional freediver with years of experience as well.
While we spent a lot of time rehearsing the pose, witnessing her transform my vision into reality in the water, with an incomparable intensity, moved me so deeply and convinced me that from now on, I should mostly create with professional dancers. I still remember, looking at her a few meters down and literally stopping to shoot for a second, just to absorb the beauty of what I was witnessing.
But from that moment, I faced a big problem: where to find a pro dancer also trained in freediving. The answer was simple: nowhere. Of course, some dancers had started this process, but I needed a very specific type of body, energy, and furthermore, mindset.
My art doesn't need just a body, but also a soul able to fully absorb what I want to share through my art.
That's why my years of experience teaching freediving started to become very useful. But my goal wasn't to teach proper freediving to my dancers, but to give them the right tools to perform in the most efficient and safe way possible.
After months and years of work and experience, I developed a method I called The First Breath. I owe that name to Marion Crampe, who also became my partner in this journey.
Since then, the list of dancer performers I have trained keeps growing, and so does the range of what becomes possible to create.
I can't create without these incredibly talented people, who give me more than just their bodies: their years of hard training, their emotions, their souls.
With all my gratitude to them, and to those who will come on my path.
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