RITUAL RECALL

a multimedia performance for cello, electronics and video

compose & perform by Hortense Airault & Manuel Valverde

Currently in development

Work-in-progress presentation: 2026

Premiere at Musikfestival Bern, 2027

Ritual Recall draws on our childhoods in Mayotte (Comoros) and Piriápolis (Uruguay), two lands shaped by ritual and mystical atmospheres. These early encounters with trance ceremonies and symbolic environments laid the foundation for the piece, exploring memory as a fluid territory where identity is continuously reconstructed.

In this context, the concept of the “mask” emerges as a lens to investigate the tension between private selves, performed identities, and the unspoken (unseen) aspects of who we are. In Mayotte, participants in trance rituals temporarily assume the presence of ancestors, allowing bodies to become vessels and personal boundaries to loosen. This echoes the symbolic masks we inhabit in daily life, shaping what we reveal, conceal, and share.

On stage, cello and electronics interact within an immersive space of multiple screens and fragmented projections. Sound, gesture, and image intersect to create a dynamic environment where memories overlap, distort, and recombine. Ritual Recall invites performers and audience alike into an active process of remembering, reflecting on how memory and identity are continuously reconfigured, shaping our relationship to the past, to ourselves, and to each other.

At the same time, a parallel with the trance rituals of Mayotte emerges within the context of the performance itself. For us, as performers, the stage becomes a space of trance, a contemporary ritual woven into the codes of the artistic performance. This creates an ambiguity: are we playing a role, adopting a mask that allows us to embody a stage identity, or are we revealing ourselves, exposing an intimate and vulnerable presence to the audience?

Ritual Recall navigates this tension, holding these two possibilities together.