When Breath Moves First

Observations from a recent workshop at International Conference "Performing Arts between Tradition and Contemporaneity" organized by IUGTE in collaboration with NIPAI

During the IUGTE International conference in collaboration with NIPAI , I led a movement workshop that began with a very simple proposal:

Allow breath to initiate movement.

Exercise One: Breath Initiation

The first exercise was intentionally minimal.

Participants were not asked to perform, express emotion, or create character.They were simply asked to notice when breath begins—and how the body follows.

At first, movement was barely visible. In a seated position, it appeared as the rise and fall of the spine, a subtle expansion of the chest.

As participants shifted into standing and allowed asymmetry to emerge, the movement became more legible:small shifts of weight, slight twists through the torso, arms reaching outward as a consequence of internal motion rather than intention. Over time, these subtle actions naturally carried into walking.

The task was not to do anything, but to recognize when change was initiated by breath rather than muscular effort.

This exercise established a baseline:a felt sense of breath leading the body

—without interpretation, expression, or narrative.

Exercise Two: Breath and Redirection

Only after this baseline was established did we move into redirection.

Participants were asked to walk quickly through space, approaching the point of potential collision with another person. Instead of anticipating or planning how to avoid contact, they explored three ways of changing direction—each defined by breath.

In the first approach, direction changed without any modification of breathing.The feet executed a sharp cut. The action was immediate, efficient, and effort-driven.

In the second, redirection occurred through inhalation. As breath lifted, the body rose with it. Movement briefly suspended, then fell into a new direction as the following exhale released the body.

In the third, redirection happened through exhalation. Breath released downward; the spine and knees followed, sinking and slowing the movement before a subsequent inhale carried the body into a new path.

Although the external task remained identical, each approach produced a distinctly different physical logic.

Direction was no longer a decision imposed by the limbs. It became a consequence of altered internal organization.

At this stage, breath was no longer simply initiating movement

—it was determining how change itself occurred.

Exercise Three: Breath Alters Movement Without Fixing Form

The final exercise brought these principles together.

Three participants were asked to perform the same basic movement material learned earlier in the workshop. The movement itself remained consistent as a point of reference, but each participant was assigned a different breathing pattern.

Crucially, they were instructed not to preserve the original movement shape.They were asked to allow changes in breathing to naturally alter timing, texture, and physical organization.

This proved to be the most challenging part for many participants. Habitually, they wanted to maintain the graceful tone of the choreography—even when their assigned breathing was rough, interrupted, or irregular.

Notably, no instructions were given regarding emotion, character, or intention.

As the exercise unfolded, observers began describing clear differences. Distinct emotional qualities emerged. Some perceived contrasting personalities, even relational dynamics—despite the absence of narrative framing or performative direction.

What appeared was not the result of expressive effort. It emerged from the way breath reorganized the body from within.

Breath as a Structural Decision

Only after witnessing this sequence did the role of breath become fully clear to me.

Breath was not functioning as an expressive layer added onto movement. It was functioning as a structural decision.

By altering breathing patterns—without prescribing form, tempo, or spatial direction—the internal organization of the body shifted. Muscle engagement redistributed. Skeletal space opened or condensed. Transitions became continuous or interrupted.

What changed was not intention, but the system of control behind the movement.

The body, it seemed, was already communicating—before interpretation arrived.

After the Experience: Understanding Why

Later study and reflection clarified why these exercises worked so consistently.

Initiating movement from breath alters the sequence of activation in the body. Instead of localized muscular effort leading action, shifts in internal pressure reorganize support first. Movement emerges from a globally distributed tone—the body’s underlying neuromuscular organization—rather than isolated points of control.

In this state, muscles participate without overload, joints retain space, and awareness remains unified rather than fragmented. One internal adjustment organizes the whole body, rather than requiring continuous micro-correction.

From this perspective, breath is neither metaphor nor emotional cue. It functions as a primary organizer of movement.

For Filmmakers and Actors

For filmmakers and actors—especially those working in arthouse cinema—this distinction is particularly relevant.

In screen performance, attention is often placed on what to play: emotion, intention, backstory, psychology. What is discussed far less is how the body is organized before any of that becomes legible.

There are many moments when emotion and intention are simply unclear. Logic fails to connect backstory to action. We don’t fully understand what we are feeling, or even how to name it. This ambiguity and internal chaos make up a large part of human experience.

When the mind cannot yet make sense of things, the body still registers them. Very often, it does so first through changes in breathing.

Breath initiation offers a different entry point.

Rather than deciding emotion in advance and asking the body to execute it, breath reorganizes the performer’s physical system—timing, weight, continuity, and responsiveness—before meaning is assigned. This is why subtle shifts in breathing can register so clearly on camera. The change is not decorative. It alters the performer’s internal logic, which the lens reads as presence, specificity, or inner life.

For actors, this allows characters to be not “played,” but inhabited.For directors, it offers a way to shape performance without over-directing psychology—by adjusting structure rather than interpretation.

What This Revealed

This experience reinforced something I have come to trust deeply in my practice:

When breath moves first, movement does not need to search for meaning.

Meaning appears as a byproduct of structural clarity.

Emotion and character are not imposed. They are perceived—by others—because the body has shifted into a different internal logic.

For me, this confirms that breath initiation is not a stylistic preference, but a foundational layer of movement organization—one that precedes expression, interpretation, and narrative.

Jan. 4, 2026