Fragile Apparitions – variations in 3 songs

Wendt+Dufaux

Fragile Apparitions – variations in 3 songs is a three-part ritual that explores the soft power of the ephemeral. Between textile carapaces and soft organs, architectures of soap films and mirror reflections, this performance-installation envelops us in an immersive, sensorial environment where forms tremble, dissolve, and reappear.

Structured as three songs in dialogue, the work moves through three interconnected movements in which dance, matter, and live music merge. Each song traces a different state of transformation—revealing the delicacy of the living, the slowness of metamorphosis, and the persistence of touch as an act of resistance.

The result of an extended research process, Fragile Apparitions brings together the collaborative practice of Sarah Wendt and Pascal Dufaux, whose work bridges choreography, sculpture, sound, and installation. Their research explores the viscosity and behaviour of materials—soap films, honey, textiles, and hybrid sculptural forms—in relation to the moving body and its sensory perception. In this encounter between bodies and materials, movement and image, the performance offers a hypnotic, tactile experience—an homage to fragility, interdependence, and the precariousness of life.

La coproduction

In 2023, Sarah Wendt and Pascal Dufaux took part in the Choreographic Research Workshops at Montréal Danse, where they explored the sensitive connections between movement, sound, and visual installation. Their interdisciplinary approach, at the crossroads of dance, media art, and performance, is rooted in a sensory inquiry into how bodies inhabit space.

Their singular world, woven from fragile materials, shifting light, and suspended presence, immediately resonated with Kathy Casey’s artistic vision, which embraces dance as a force for transformation and awareness. From this encounter emerged a natural collaboration, driven by a shared desire to open the field of dance to hybrid and contemplative forms.

Montréal Danse is proud to co-produce Fragiles Apparitions – variations in 3 songs, a performance-installation that weaves together the physicality of bodies and the delicacy of materials in a space animated by breath, light, and sound.

Première

Processus

In development

Durée
75 minutes

Coproduction
Montréal Danse

GALERIE

CREDITS

Set design, choreography, artistic direction, music, sculptures, costumes, and performance
Sarah Wendt & Pascal Dufaux

Dramaturgie
Kathy Casey et Thea Patterson

Interpreters
Elinor Fueter and Rachel Harris

Lighting and set design
Paul Chambers

Inflatable luminous object
Studio Rat

With creative contributions from:
Lucy Fandel, Émile Pineault, Nien Tzu Weng, and Winnie Ho.

Creation support
Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, OBORO, Montréal Danse

The artists would like to extend their warmest thanks to the artists, friends, and institutions that supported the various stages of creation, particularly through residencies and studio contributions: Musée d’art de Joliette, FURIES festival, Centre de Création O Vertigo, Studio 303, [ìn]operabilities (Theater Kampnagel, Hamburg), Art in the Open (PEI), Antigonight, Confederation Centre of the Arts, Tangente Danse, L’Écart, Art Circulation, CIRCA Art Actuel, Marianne Cloutier, Anne Paré, Raúl Aguilar Canela, Paul Rose, Karen Fennell, Audrée Juteau, Mary Williamson, John Henry Gerena, Gabriela Jovian-Mazon, Charlotte Calais, as well as all the individuals and the entire Montréal Danse team who made this project possible.