Concept & Choreograph: Patricia Apergi | Cast (In Alphabetical Order): Sevasti Zafeira, Eleanna Zoi, Ilias Chatzigeorgiou, Fuerza Negra, Andrea Givanovitch, Caterina Politi, Melina Sofokleous | Dramaturgy: Roberto Fratini Serafide | Music & Sound Design: Giorgos Poulios | Set Design: Evangelia Therianou | Lighting Design: Nikos Vlasopoulos | Costumes: Eirini Georgakila | Artistic Consultant: Adrianos Efthymiadis | Research Consultant: Iria Vrettou | Assistant To The Choreographer: Emmanouela Sakellari | Assistant To The Costume Designer: Kyranna Gkioka | Set Designer Assistant: Genevieve Athanasopoulou | Custom-Made Props: Konstantinos Chaldaios | Tailoring: Evangelia Tsiouni, Francesco Infante, Joanna Loka | Set Parts Construction: Sozon Bessis | Stage Technician: Marios Karaolis, Martha Papazoglou | Production Technical Coordinator: Nikos Charalampidis | Creative Producer: Yolanda Markopoulou, Vicky Strataki / Polyplanity Productions | Executive Producers: Aerites Dance Company - Polyplanity Productions, Int. Distribution, Plan B – Creative Agency For Performing Arts Hamburg
A Project By: Patricia Apergi // Aerites Dance Company | Commissioned & Produced: Onassis Stegi | Co-Produced by Le Gymnase – Cdcn Roubaix – Hauts-De-France (Fr), La Rose Des Vents – Scene Nationale Lille Métropole – Villeneuve D´ascq (Fr) | Premiere: Onassis Stegi
Touring Is Supported By Onassis Stegi’s “Outward Turn” Cultural Export Program
"I don't know where to start. I have to share it with you. You have come this far. We will do everything to please you. We depend on you. We need you. Use us. We can do anything. The world is on our shoulders. You need us. There are no more of us. We are already facing extinction."
The new work of the dance company Aerites aspires to converse with the concept of identity through the violence each one of us may undergo or inflict in order to define ourselves, the world, and our freedom. It is a paean to individuals and their choices, to diversity and self-determination. It is the beginning of a show that is staged to present us everything that deviates from what we are used to, a show made in order to admire the different, that dares to put in the spotlight everything that is not counted as “average” and that exists to remind us the majesty and the beauty of each body, of each existence. Just like it happens in a circus.
That luminous world we conjure at any age to define our ideal, special, and unique society, our tender and fair microcosm; where courage and boldness were applauded, provided that we were sure that all safety measures were followed; where violence was glorified as we were assured by the fact that it derives from faith, discipline, and obedience. But what happens when we are no more able to tame all these? When our visit to this world touches upon the darkest areas of our fears? When the dwarf we have been applauding all this time stops dancing cutely and decides to pull the trigger on us?
When violence erupts from the people who have fought not to accept violence?
Circus or life? Truth or spectacle?
That’s how we arrive at our glorious present time.
“The House of Trouble” is a party that incorporates all these reactions. It adopts the “outbursts” of the era to reveal to us that we can still have a good time despite our lack of harmony and disagreements. It is a love letter to the absurdity of the dipoles presented to us constantly by societies. A feast for the joy of transformation and multidimensionality of our bodies.
CHOREOGRAPHER’S NOTE
The category is: The struggle of diversity
Determining ourselves together
We shall fight anyone who thinks that their history is written in brighter letters than ours.
The category is: Trouble
The dance from within
Trouble does not bring peace.
Our trouble dances.
It breaks the flow of breath we needed in order to exist.
Trouble makes promises. Because when it does come, we shall know then that we can at last calm down.
We awake in trouble and we shall go forward beside it.
The category is: War
Civil and gender war/ a vertical accented line makes the difference in our boundaries
What happens though when the self-evident fair fights for the freedom of expression and existence turn into ruthless acts of violence? When we are divided into “us” and “them”?
The category is: Circus
Clowns or simply ludicrous?
Protagonists or extras? Truth or spectacle? When we will discover the humor in the midst of disagreement, the joy within hardship, in order to become able at some point to compensate ordeal with communication?
The category is: The utopia of pleasure
Our personal paradise
The discovery of this new land, which reveals to us that certain pleasure we draw from diversity. The moment when we can savor our victories. The points or pauses between the ceaseless struggles. The place we find peace. The place where normal is defined by exceptions.
The category is: Tenderness
The weapon of the many. The majesty of existence.
In an era where half of us take it for granted that there is no reason to even discuss such matters as we are fully aware of the freedom of existence and, at the same time, the other half still discovers that we may not be the same after all.
All of us are having a hard time. We do feel though that in a world teetering and shaking, the joy is found in those short pauses between battles.
Welcome to our show!
Welcome to the impromptu freefall into the future!
– Patricia Apergi
