Synkroniciti is honored to welcome German performance artist and choreographer Crystalle Bobbe with MANDELA – Pilot of the Winds, a luscious performance video set to Max Richter’s Sarajevo. The soaring vocals and rhythmic ostinati intertwine with white feathers and fabric caught in rising wind, all unfolding against the stark backdrop of a swing set amid ruined, bombed‑out buildings.
“The flying objects transcend into beings performing their dance of the rising winds, personifying the vulnerability of all the souls destroyed by war.”
Crystalle’s depiction of the dignity of the oppressed is monumental. In the midst of physical wreckage, spirit persists, shining, trembling, and ultimately freed.
The motion of the feathers, and especially the fabric, first deftly guided, then released, evokes mutability, impermanence, and the emergence of what Crystalle calls soul bodies. The effect is visceral and primal, touching the place where grief becomes breath and movement.
In the final moments, the scene shifts forward to reveal the shadow of the swing set. Within the shadow alone, the swings are occupied, symbolizing children lost, childhood lost, children who will never be.
It is a haunting, eloquent gesture that lingers long after the image fades. Don’t be surprised to find moisture in your eyes or a lump in your throat.
Watch MANDELA – Pilot of the Winds in Synkroniciti’s Dignity, Vol. 8, No. 3, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Crystalle Bobbe is a Berlin-based performance artist and choreographer working between movement, music, objects, and visual poetry. Trained in circus arts, dance, and physical theatre in Paris and Berlin, she specializes in tightrope dance and aerial techniques. She has performed across Europe and in nine productions in the United States, toured with the Tiger Lillies, and worked at Berlin’s Schaubühne. Her practice explores how invisible forces and inner states become physically perceptible through movement, objects, and precise dramaturgical structures. Her current research focuses on developing MANDELA – Pilot of the Winds into HUMAN RIGHTS, a new performance experience exploring how war continues inside the body and why becoming and staying human may be the most difficult task of all.