THE DAY I BECAME A CLOUD (2023)
A performance-parcours of the series SOLO LIKE A PIG
Film and television director Hansjörg Thurn accompanied the production from the first rehearsals in Annonay in southern France to the premiere in Paris and the performances in Emanuele Soavi’s hometown of Ferrara. His film essay THE DAY I BECAME A CLOUD was included in the official selections of the film festivals in New York, Tokyo, Seattle, Ierapetra and Ferrara in 2025 and awarded Best Documentary at the Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival and the Detroit Independent Film Festival.
Here you find the mini-docu THE DAY I BECAME A CLOUD by Julia Franken
Further documentaries about the series SOLO LIKE A PIG under mediation & documentation
World Premiere 16. and 17. September 2023 Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
For the German premiere on November 25th and 26th, 2023 in the LVR’s Max Ernst Museum Brühl, the performance and installation will be adapted for the rooms of the permanent collection and the special exhibition ‘Surreal Futures’.
The Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris and the Max Ernst Museum Brühl have invited the Cologne-based choreographer Emanuele Soavi to develop a performance that relates to the museums’ collection spaces.
The new episode from the series SOLO LIKE A PIG is increasingly dedicated to the core theme that runs as a common thread through the series: “Surviving and remaining visible” – individually and collectively, as an artist and as a human being – even beyond one’s own finiteness. In this process, remembering reveals itself to be a strategy for setting transformations in motion – and sharing experiences (physically) to be another.
Soavi and the internationally renowned actress and dancer Kate Strong, as well as ensemble members of ESincompany and performers based in Paris, relate in scenic and dance miniatures to the famous portraits of dancers in the bipartite Salle Matisse. About his monumental work ‘La Danse’ Matisse said, that the fragmentation of the dancers create “An Impression of Vastness in a limited space”. The visual level intertwines with a sound installation by composer Johannes Malfatti, consisting of several vertically suspended bandoneons, promising to be both a visual-tonal framework and a challenging counterplay. The central event is supplemented and associatively expanded in further spaces by performative interventions.
The experimental series format SOLO LIKE A PIG consists of several standalone episodes that culminate in an hours-long performance course in 2025. THE DAY I BECAME A CLOUD is the third episode in the series. What connects all episodes is their departure from the conventional space of the theater and the creation of a barrier-free experiential space in museums, galleries, libraries and on the piazza, making contemporary dance and the involved art disciplines – music, visual / digital arts, acting – accessible to all and enabling friction and interaction between performance and audience.
The creation of the episodes is each based on Emanuele Soavi’s research residencies – in this case in Paris at the Goethe-Institute and in Annonay. The focus of the exploration is the consideration of the nature of the theatrical from sociological, historical, scientific and aesthetic perspectives, in order to engage in a very personal confrontation with his own role as an author, a choreographer and performer. And finally, together with artistic companions from various disciplines, to question the relationship between the (surrounding) world and the performative body from a current perspective.
‘Cloud appreciation’ Kate Strong, Emanuele Soavi, Johannes Malfatti
Federico Casadei, Taeyeon Kim, Lisa Kirsch, Lorenzo Molinaro
‘Chorus A’
PARIS: Olivia Bouis, Léonard Catz, Thibaut Carré, Joan Cellier, Mahamat Fofana, Marcelle Gressier, Joséphine Moulinjeune, Louison Valette
BRÜHL: Anastasia Barer, Marco Bissoli, Mohamed Moodimbi, Lili Oksanen
‘Chorus B’ Federico Casadei, Taeyeon Kim, Lisa Kirsch, Lorenzo Molinaro
Concept, Choreography Emanuele Soavi In cooperation with Kate Strong, Johannes Malfatti, Achim Conrad and the performers of Emanuele Soavi incompany Music Composition Johannes Malfatti Text Kate Strong, Emanuele Soavi Setting and Costumes Raissa Kankelfitz Technical Management Roman Sroka Stage and General Management Achim Conrad Project Management Miriam Leysner Public Relation Anne-Kathrin Reif Photos Joris Jan Bos
Special Thanks to Nils Brabandt, Joachim Hering, Kodac Ko, Giacomo Luci, Helga Müller-Serre, Mitchel Raper, Burkhatd Rauch, Andreas Schmitz, Hansjörg Thurn, Vitali Urtaev
Production by Emanuele Soavi incompany
In Co-production with Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR
Supported by Goethe-Institut Paris, Cie La Baraka – Abou Lagraa & Nawal Aït Benalla – creative residency La Chapelle Annonay, ehrenfeldstudios, iDAS NRW and Harlequin
Funded by Kulturamt der Stadt Köln, Ministerium für Kunst und Wissenschaft des Landes NRW, NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste, Kunststiftung NRW, KunstSalon-Stiftung
