“I can’t breathe!” George Floyd’s desperate cry as he was being murdered reverberated around the world, not only because of the brutality of the police violence that killed him, but above all because it drew attention to the violation of one of the most fundamental human rights: the right to breathe, a basic need that transcends race, class and ideology. Breathing is so fundamental that we tend to take it for granted, until the moment it is taken away from us.

Moroccan choreographer Mehdi Dhakan believes that breathing can also become a form of resistance against a repressive, authoritarian regime. This conviction is inspired by aïta, a genre of traditional Moroccan song that was used to convey messages during the French Protectorate and helped keep the spirit of collective action alive. In a similar way, Mehdi is interested in the body as a vehicle for collective expression, and in the possibilities of the vocal apparatus as both a means of recognition and camouflage.

In regimes where freedom of expression and demonstration is restricted, or even criminalised, everyday language is no longer a safe tool for political protest. When words are persecuted, the body must seek refuge in a language that is harder to decipher, yet at the same time more fundamental. Breathing can be a way of demonstrating without slogans, yet with a powerful underlying message: whoever we are, we are united because we all breathe.

KMs of Resistance transforms breathing into the foundation of a rhythmic, choreographic production that is impossible not to engage with. Although it begins with just two bodies, it seeks to broaden the sense of collectivity and draw us in, much as Banda Esfèrica invites us to become part of an organised group in Granotes al cel, aigua a la terra! The way this piece explores the crisis of the body and language in a context of political repression also links it to CLAP & SLAP by Agniete Lisičkinaite and Igor Shugaleev, reminding us that resistance is an urgent global imperative, from Lithuania to Morocco.