Dore Hoyer (1911–1967), who was an exponent of the German expressionist trend, notably as a performer for Mary Wigman, occupies a unique place in the history of dance, at the frontier between different styles and eras. In 1962, when American abstract dance was at its height, she created Afectos humanos, a series of short works that gave body to a wide range of emotions in which Vanity, Desire, Hate, Fear and Love were conveyed by a powerful expressivity. Her work, which is impossible to categorise, has survived only in a black and white film that was shot in 1967, shortly before her death. Some fifty years later, choreographer and dancer Paula Pi came across this work and decided to explore this dance with the aim of finding out what it was able to express today. In addition to the question of the transmission of this heritage was that of the time gap separating us from Dore Hoyer and the issues and preoccupations she had in 1962. How can this gap be resgistered through the body, speech and space, with the tools and aesthetic codes of our time? Paula Pi chose to treat these human emotions not as a restoration, but rather as an enquiry through documentary, performance, concert, lecture and performance. During the to-and-fro between present and past, she varied perspectives, reconstituting a living, fragile archive in which each element is reinvestigated, scrutinised and shared. This temporary crack that has been opened up is filled by a clarity of gesture and uncertainty of meaning, by a desire to share and the vagaries of performance. 

Dance premiered on 21.03. 2017 at the CN D. 

Pol Pi started by studying music, the theatre and Butoh, before discovering contemporary dance. After graduating in classical music at  the University of Campinas, she took a Ex.e.r.ce masters at the CCN of  Montpellier from 2013 to 2015, where she worked on the notion of  reconstitution and studied the dances of the German choreographer Dore Hoyer. In 2017, this research led to the creation of the solo Ecce (H)omo. She also works with various choreographers: Holly Cavrell,  Clarissa Sachelli, Eszter Salamon, Latifa Laâbissi/Nadia Lauro, Pauline  Simon, Anna Anderegg, Aude Lachaise... In 2019, Paula Pi became Pol Pi.

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).