NEMESIS, the new production conceived and directed by Giorgos Christakis, founder of Dagipoli Dance Co, explores the relationship between the human body and the environment, the ecosystem and climate change, and points out the key role played in maintaining the balance among them by the human factor, that is, human behaviour.
If one projects the role of the climate change-burdened ecosystem onto the human body, one notices that the degeneration of both of them is mainly due to human behaviour. Taking into account the social, economic, class, national, and psychological considerations and effects of climate change, NEMESIS explores the spectrum and the processes of effectively addressing it in relation to man and his body and, more specifically, the disabled body. That is why the work proposes ways to address the effects of climate change and the issue of human behaviour in association with these two vital notions (body/disabled body) by drawing connections, pinpointing identifications and developing interactions between them.
The new choreographic work The Breath of the World by Mariela Nestora / YELP Dance Co. focuses on breathing as an experiential relationship of the body with the world. In a climate-changing world, plants are our most important co-habitants. Our relationship with them is based on reciprocity. We breathe in the oxygen they exhale and they inhale the oxygen we breathe out. How can we reinforce the ecological affinities that cultivate the concepts of care and reciprocity?
Three dancers and three musicians weave together a creative project that brings out breathing as a biological, psychological, existential and spiritual crossroads, while exploring ways to co-exist and interact with different bodies. The world’s breathing is timed with sunset, it awakens empathy and highlights every audience member’s unique perception. The performance’s ephemeral “organism” becomes perceived as part of another greater ecosystem, while the world’s breathing mechanism becomes activated as an experience but also as a gathering of different species.
The Dancers of the North present Commedia Divina, a new production choreographed and directed by Tatiana Papadopoulou. Commedia Divina is a stage transcription of Dante’s journey across the three borderline destinations of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, seen through the prism of climate change.
The emblematic work of world literature, Dante’s Commedia Divina is a modern environmental allegory. It fascinatingly captures man’s unbreakable relationship with nature. The poet’s journey across the three Kingdoms of the dead of the Catholic worldview includes “travellers’ accounts” of the Underworld. Modern-day communities feel the rising environmental pressures and seek a way out, just as the poet is looking for an exit. Passing from the overheated Hell to Purgatory, where nature is “normalized”, he ends up in Paradise, the place of absolute harmonization, where man is reconnected to nature.
The body is earth. It carries rivers. Their water masses move inside of us, run through us and move us. Water is nothing but us. It is our first relative and the first medicine to which we turn. As long as we continue to poison and exhaust our water resources, how will we be able to clean our wounds?
Running Dry invites audiences to a dance performance, where water returns as a Fury, as a primeval urge. The Furies cannot exist in the absence of the wild. This is what they invoke: the untamable, defending the wild landscapes of the soul. A Fury is water shortage, drought, flood, the rising of the sea level, the rivers that dry up, the wrinkling skin. She is not a punishment; she turns into knowledge. Dancing bodies return to the water – their oldest wild relative –, and through motion waves, voices, confessions and gestures they unfold personal water maps of physical memories and weave a world of bright co-existence.
In the new original work The Oracles of Water, director and choreographer Apostolia Papadamaki creates a modular, interactive and participatory site-specific performance connecting climate change and the global water crisis with the mythical background and worship of Apollo in Delphi. Through a trajectory of meanings, she aspires to put together scientific discoveries and findings, historical facts, mythical entities and high concepts, by associating studies on the effects of climate change in the wider area of Delphi and the consequences of human intervention in its water table with the global water crisis. The performance transcends traditional boundaries, using the power of art to attract audiences both spiritually and emotionally. It serves as a reminder of humanity’s responsibility to protect the planet’s most valuable resource and encourage collective action to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Every performance consists of two parts. The first part takes place between 6.30-7.30, at sunrise, at the Temple of Athena Pronaia and the second part between 20.00-21.10 at the archaeological site of Delphi. Attending both parts is mandatory.
Evrotas attempts to make a poignant artistic commentary on man’s relationship with Nature and the necessity of protecting the natural environment over the generations. The flow of the action of the five performers – each of them of different age –, in tune with the natural daylight, invites audience members to focus on actions that sometimes take place close to them and other times far from them, so that they can change their perception through space and time. Audience members are asked to take a walk with stops at various spots, where they can change their field of view so as to better observe the landscape and identify the human interventions that alter it, realising in this way the ”stake” of co-existence. Manolis Manousakis’ original music takes the audience on a journey at times along the river and at times across the city. This alternation will raise questions. Evrotas’ goal is to raise awareness along with questions about the co-existence of man and Nature.
A performance drawing information from scientific and anthropological research and transforming it into a subversive visual, choreographic and musical concept. Bodies Floating Into the Land focuses on the protection of biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea and the effects of climate change on human and non-human organisms. Starting with invasive foreign species, such as lionfish, toadfish, purple jellyfish etc., which are transported through ballast tanks along with sea water used to maintain the ship’s stability, we ponder upon the vulnerability of all of the “sea creatures”. The work is informed by the place where it is held – here, the fierce god of the sea turns into a positive figure as a miracle doctor. The symbolic character of the cure conveys messages of hope for the future of the planet and consolation against ecological grief.
The two-day Τouching Faultlines event is a conversation between modern artistic practices and the Roman Odeon of Gortyna. It explores geological time and movement, with a special focus on ruptures and tensions as points of contact. The relationship between geological and historical past emerges in the present through performance acts, dancing, sculptural and audiovisual installations, texts, and sound interventions. Performers react to the converging and diverging movements of tectonic plates, volcanic eruptions, and seismic vibrations, along with their political and cultural connotations.
Τouching Faultlines aims to provide space for narratives that explore the concepts of perpetual movement, release, rupture, freedom, and reconstruction. Whether regarding language, gender, or their geopolitical implications, friction and confrontation require the existence of a performative zone of contact. Within this zone, tensions are expressed where there is movement. If the points of conflict are seen as surfaces that come into contact with each other, then what can we learn by studying the geological formations and their movements in the Mediterranean Basin?
Programme
23 August 2024 | Opening 17.30 – 21.00
Performances:
18.00 Anna Papathanasiou & Inga Galinytė, Empathetic Bodies
19.00 Ermira Goro, Faultlines
Screening:
20.30 Huniti Goldox, The Dido Problem
24 August 2024 | 08.00 – 20.30
Performances:
19.00 Ermira Goro, Faultlines
Screening:
20.30 Huniti Goldox, The Dido Problem
The modern dance performance ACROSS TIME by Die Wolke Art Group explores the concept of conflict. Its building blocks are references to familiar images, texts, and sounds spanning from ancient to contemporary times, resonating with the audience.
The piece follows an original script, created by combining new texts with textual and directorial excerpts from works such as T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Euripides’ The Bacchae, and many other references across different time periods. Moreover, snapshots from cinema, music, painting, and mythology inspire the direction and choreography of the piece, adding an element that is equivalent to intertextuality in the performance art.
ACROSS TIME includes original music, a tetraphonic surround sound design, and surtitles with the Greek translation of the texts.
Drawing inspiration from the myth of Prometheus, Spyros Kouvaras continues his choreographic explorations across our collective memory. Using movement, sound, and image as tools, he delves into the monumental struggle of the mythical hero, in an effort to uncover the parallels between ancient times and modern history. The choreographer “transports” the body to the fragile present, all the while perceiving a dream of the future concealed within the myth. As he plays with the different definitions of time, the original electroacoustic music and the surround sound installation lead the performers to a dance that evokes images reminiscent of the landscapes of the unconscious.
A choreographic uprising or a manifesto about freedom? PROMETHEUS 2024 (unbound bodies) brings to the foreground the proud independence of a form of heroism that explores the limitless boundaries of imagination and sheds light on the contemporary battlefield, which essentially is our own culture. This way, it focuses on the anthropological aspect of the myth, raising a crucial question in our modern, volatile world: Can humans save humanity?