Four Swedish artistes walk onto the stage. One of them raises a mic to her lips and lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. One after another, like clockwork, the women join her — all breathing directly into the mic. Anywhere else in the world, this is an onsite sound engineer’s worst nightmare. Not at Mahalaxmi’s G5A this week.

SonoR, a dance-meets-live sound show by French Sweden-based director and choreographer Aloun Marchal throws the concept of background music out of the window. “I grew tired of seeing dance shows where the music is the emotional underlayer and dance is mainly an ornamentation on top of it,” he reasons. Strapped with wireless mics, his performers become their own soundtrack.