Vis Motrix Synopsis

Vis Motrix — Latin for “driving force” — is a contemporary dance work by Cocoon Dance Company that explores movement as an inner necessity. Guided by choreographer Rafaële Giovanola, the piece unfolds through bodies in continuous transformation, driven by instinct, impulse, and physical urgency. Rejecting fixed techniques, Vis Motrix embraces raw, intuitive movement to question how form emerges from lived experience. Created and performed by women-identifying artists, the work embeds feminist perspectives within its process, offering audiences an immersive encounter with dance as a living, evolving force. A central lens of the project is gender and authorship. Created and performed by women-identifying artists, Vis Motrix foregrounds female-led choreographic thinking and re-examines performance-making through embodied, feminist perspectives. Rather than presenting representation as theme, the work embeds equity into its artistic process and leadership.

Rafaele Giovanola, Choreographer and Artistic Director, CocoonDance Company

Rafaële Giovanola is a Swiss choreographer and the artistic director of CocoonDance Company. Trained at the Académie de Danse Princesse Grace in Monte Carlo, she danced as a soloist with the Frankfurt Ballet under William Forsythe, performing seminal works of one of contemporary dance’s most influential periods. In 2000, she founded CocoonDance in Bonn, developing a distinctive choreographic language centred on bodies in transformation. Giovanola’s work has toured internationally and has received numerous awards, including the Deutscher Theaterpreis DER FAUST (2022).

Dancers

1. Cristina Commisso
2. Fa-Hsuan Chen
3. Margaux Dorsaz
4. Eleonore Vrdoljak