YEAR 4 | PERFORMANCES | U(R)TOPIAS ACADEMY OF CHOREOGRAPHY
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YEAR 4 | PERFORMANCES | U(R)TOPIAS ACADEMY OF CHOREOGRAPHY -
PART OF 2023 ΕΛΕΥΣIΣ | EUROPEAN CAPITAL of CULTURE
MYSTERY 59 / YEAR 4 / PERFORMANCES
PERFORMANCES (YEAR 4)
The 2023 Elefsis European Capital of Culture presents the Mystery 59 U(R)TOPIAS Academy of Choreography under the artistic direction of Patricia Apergi and the Contemporary Dance Group Aerites, which will conclude after four years on 30, 31 May and 1 June 2025 with a walking site-based performance in the public space of Elefsis.
Two years after Dance MyS+eries / Season 2, which created the conditions for communication with public space, the Academy returns with Dance MyS+eries / Season 4, this time mapping a route that explores the city’s neighborhoods and its hidden landmarks, opening a dialogue between private and public space and the possibilities created between them.
The six young choreographers, who have been attending the Academy’s program for two years and have been working systematically in the city, present their works (each lasting 15 minutes) on a route that connects the TITAN director’s residence, the first industrial complex and the unseen side of Elefsina, following the truck streets and the daily life of the city.
PROMENADE (YEAR 4)
DANCE MYS+ERIES (29/06 - 02/07/2023)
Two years after Dance MyS+eries / Season 2, that created the conditions for communication with public space, the Academy returns with Dance MyS+eries / Season 4, this time mapping a route that explores the city’s neighborhoods and its hidden landmarks, initiating a dialogue between private and public space and the possibilities that emerge between them.
The 6 young choreographers present their works on a route that connects the TITAN director’s residence, the first industrial complex and the unseen side of Elefsina, following the streets of trucks and the daily life of the city.
Dance MyS+eries / Season 4 are divided into different episodes, where each episode is the work of each choreographer, a different station. Each station illuminates a hidden aspect of the city, inviting the audience on a journey through the space and time of Elefsina.
Artistic Director / Curator: Patricia Apergi
Assistant Artistic Director: Dimitra Mitropoulou
Dramaturgy Consultant: Roberto Frattini Serafide
Lighting Design: Nikos Vlasopoulos
Cinematography: Grigoris Panopoulos
Photography / Social Media Manager: Fani Maria Chatzi
Graphic Design: Adrianos Efthymiadis
Technical Support: Manos Georgakopoulos
Production: TooFarEast
Production Manager: Konstantina Douka-Gkosi
Production Support & Audience Management Coordination: Anastasia Tsopelaki
Production Assistant: Ioanna Papakosta
Performers: Nondas Damopoulos, Xenia Koghilaki, Dimitra Mitropoulou, Caterina Politi
PRESENTATIONS (YEAR 4)
EPISODES (YEAR 4)
Elephant Angelos Papadopoulos (s.04 ep.01)
‘When I was a child, my mother - who didn't speak Greek well at the time - used to watch Dumbo on TV with me. She didn't understand the words, but she took me in her arms and told me that one day I would fly away from the city too.’
Extract from an interview with a resident of Elefsina, February 2024
The work focuses on listening to the voice that emerges from within us when everything around us is silent. It brings to the fore a constant regression between fragility and determination, a body sculpted by its voice. Through vocal patterns, rhythmic gestures, improvisations and repetitive structures, the experience of growing up in the city of Elefsina unfolds as a personal memory and a universal question: Which voice within us moves us? What voice within us nurtures us?
X, moving between silence and cry, seeks a point of balance. M's voice becomes a mirror, a maternal memory, a filter - sometimes leading, sometimes holding back, sometimes challenging. The rhythm of the metronome becomes a heartbeat, a tool of transition.
The choreography does not tell a story. It is itself the process of its birth. From the minimal to the enormous.
Concept • Choreography: Angelos Papadopoulos
Original Music Composition: Marissa Bili
Photos: Dimitra Tzannou
Performance: Xaris Dimos
Collect Yourself Elina Demirtzioglou (s.04 ep.02)
Inspired by the women who worked at TITAN Cement factory in Elefsina, Collect Yourself explores the connection between people and cement, using it as a metaphor for human experience and personal development.
Just as cement hardens through a process, human beings harden through their experiences. Our experiences can crack us and even cause us to lose parts of ourselves.
How necessary is this process, in the end, in order to "break" our own "cement" and free ourselves?
Concept • Choreography: Elina Demirtzioglou
Set: Panos Profitis
Sound design: Vassilina
Promo material design / Video: Angelos Socos
Performance & Material cocreation: Emma Antivasi, Elena Psimmenou, Xenia Stathouli
Enypnio Nefeli Theodotou (s.04 ep.03)
Between the conscious and the unconscious, all elements sleepwalk and blend together without fully matching.
Memory and dance intersect reality with imagination and place them in a space that balances between sleep and wakefulness.
Through the dreams of the Eleusinian residents, a mix of images, gestures, and movements is inspired—intertwining and conversing with each other using a vocabulary that is constantly altering.
Three bodies unfold mosaic stories drawn from the collective dreamscape of a city asleep.
Concept • Choreography: Nefeli Theodotou
Costume Design: Apostolos Mitropoulos
Music: RAAD
Promo material photos: Marios Hadjantoni
Performers: Velma Andrianaki, Ioanna Kagiou, Nefeli Theodotou
That is all I stand up for Mairi Giannoula (s.04 ep.04)
What happens in a place where everything has already happened?
From the reality of a yard, I visit the place where physical exhaustion takes place, with the purpose of transformation and the anticipation of a mysterious “something,” exploring how imagination is summoned as a means of survival and change. The silence of the body in the process of intensive effort, a defined space with indefinite possibilities, contributes to a field of battle, prayer, indignation, promise of not giving up before giving everything in the disorder of tenderness. A song dedicated to Elefsina that hurts and is hurting, a dreamy transition to the elusive dream, to the way out, to the moment when the body is everything and nothing, to fatigue, to hope, to indignation, to a transcendental step towards the unknown.
Concept • Choreography • Lyrics • Performance: Mairi Giannoula
Music / Teaser / Photography: Alexis Falantas
Set Design: Eudokia Makri, Fofo Mastori
ecHoos Dimitris Baltas (s.04 ep.05)
An environment. A structure. A person inhabiting it. A place both familiar and distant. He soon realizes he no longer exists in his homeland. To (re)position himself, he must either resist or surrender to the social structure around him. This journey forces him to measure his values and confront his boundaries and the past.
The performance ecHoos delves into the relationship between contemporary humans and the society they inhabit. It questions whether we genuinely belong within the social, political, and gender frameworks that shape our lives, or if our journey is merely a constant struggle for adaptation. As we strive to reposition our bodies within these structures, our histories—personal and collective—can become resources or obstacles.
Ultimately, ecHoos challenges us to consider: Is it only the individual who is transformed through this process, or does the place itself also undergo change?
Concept • Choreography • Stage Design • Performance: Dimitris Baltas
*The traditional song «Skaros», heard in the performance, is arranged by Gidiki band.
Lunar Seaga Adonis Vais (s.04 ep.06)
The work is attempting to recreate on stage the state of a dream. Elefsina is transforming into an imaginary land where the human body exists as a medium between transcendence and harmony. A personal journey towards the unfamiliar environment of Vlycha, where the combination of artificial and natural elements merge on a «physicality of transition» and an endless relation between destruction and creation.
Concept • Choreography • Stage Design • Performance: Adonis Vais
Cocreation / Artistic Direction / Video Art: Haris Savvopoulos
Music Composition: Nonika (Marcel Coka)
Assistant Choreographer: Angelos Locos
Landscape Research / Photos: Maria Kosmidi
Visual Artist: Iria Vrettou
Light Design Supervision: Afroditi Neri
Set Design Supervision: Dimitris Zampopoulos
Technical Support: Vasilis Papailiopoulos
Teaser: Haris Savvopoulos, Adonis Vais
