Tzeni Argyriou
Tzeni Argyriou (b. 1977, Kavala, GR) is an independent choreographer and media artist. She is a graduate of the State School of Dance, Athens (1995-98) and a scholar from A.Onassis Foundation (New York 2000-2002). During her stay in New York (2000-2004) she collaborated as a performer with choreographers such as Bill Young, Maria Hassabi, Nina Winthrop, Jeremy Wade, Amanda Loulaki and more, while creating and presenting her own individual projects.
Since 2003 she is a founding member of Amorphy.org, a non profit company that supports the creation of multidisciplinary and hybrid art forms. For more than 15 years her interest in engaging the performing arts with new technologies and other artistic genres, generating choreographic artworks, multimedia performances and installation as well as in situ actions that are based on the history and the community of specific locations. Some of those work often were realized through co-creations with local and international artists.
Her works has been produced and presented by renown institution and festivals such as: Onassis Cultural Centre (GR), Athens and Epidaurus Festival (GR), Festival Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (FR), Kalamata International Dance Festival(GR), Spring Performing Arts Festival Utrecht (NL), Benaki Museum, Athens (GR), Fast Forward Festival (GR), MIR Festival (GR), Temps D’Images Festival, Düsseldorf (DE), Arc For Dance Festival (GR), Judson Church at Movement Research N.Y. (U.S.A.).
She has been an invited artist in residency from local and international art institutions (Greece, Germany, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Bulgaria), and has received support from EU Culture 2000, Ministry of Culture and Sports, The non Profit Organization NEON, Duncan Dance Research Center etc.
She has designed and implemented original research workshops and improvisation workshops for children, adult amateurs and professionals for: Athens Digital Art Festival, BIOS exploring urban culture, State Dance School, Athens School of Fine Arts, Sofia School of Fine Arts, and Dance Schools Choros, Chorochronos and Rallou Manou.
Zoi Dimitriou
Zoi Dimitriou is a dance artist, choreographer and educator. Βorn in Athens, she graduated from the Greek State School of Dance with Honours, received the Onassis Foundation Scholarship to study at Trisha Brown in New York and in 2005 completed with distinction her MA in European Dance Theatre Practice at Trinity Laban in London.
She launched her choreographic career in 2006, and her portofolio includes the works: Can You See Me? (2006), Dromi (2007), Limen (2007), Goddesses in Exile (2008), In The Process of…(2010), Little Creatures (2011), You May! (2012), The Chapter House (2014), Side Effects (2015), Peregrinus (2017) Vanishing Points (2018), Funky Turn and/or Legally Live (2020), among others. She has been awarded prestigious UK choreography awards; Robin Howard Foundation Award (2008), Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund Award (2009), CfC Award (2010), as well as participation in the European Network Aerowaves.
Her works have been featured in venues and festivals such as: Fast Forward Festival 4/Onassis Cultural Centre, ROH2, Arnolfini, BE Festival, Lilyan Baylis, Teatri di Vita/Bologna, The Athens and Epidaurus Festival, The Kalamata International Dance Festival, Operaestate Festival Veneto, Scala di Milano, Europe in Motion Festival, Springloaded/The Place, among others.
Her practice investigates the qualities and conditions of spectatorship, draws from the larger social for the development of choreographic activity and is characterised by a strong inter-disciplinary nature. She is currently a Research Fellow at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. Her research examines the nature of the image in live performance and explores the relationship between formal and/or aesthetic approaches into material and the perceptual engagement of the audience.
She has an extensive background in education and leading workshops internationally at festivals and organisations such as Impulstanz Festival in Vienna, Independence Dance, Sasha Waltz Company and Guests in Berlin, National Dance Academy in Rome, among others.
Iris Karayan
Iris Karayan is a dancer, choreographer and teacher based in Athens, Greece. She studied dance at the Greek State School of Dance (2001) and completed a Master of Arts in Performance and Culture (2007) at Goldsmiths College, UK. She is also a graduate from The American College of Greece, Deree College and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (1997).
She has taught choreography and improvisation at the Greek State School of Dance (from 2007 to 2018), at Rallou Manou School of Dance (from 2016 to 2018), and at the School of Fine Arts (Nafplio), University of Peloponnese (2009-2010). Since 2013, she has been leading movement and improvisation workshops for people with and without visual impairment, at the educational program of the Onassis Stegi. Her works have been presented in European festivals and venues. Mothers (2012) was selected by the dance network Aerowaves 2013, and the Dansnät Sverige in 2014 for touring in Sweden. Alaska (2016), commissioned by the Onassis Stegi, premiered in Athens and was presented in Le Quartz Scène Nationale de Brest during DañsFabrik, and at the 24th Kalamata International Dance Festival. Unauthorised (2018) has been selected by Aerowaves 2020. She has received support and funding from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the Onassis Stegi, and the J. F. Costopoulos Foundation. In 2010, she was awarded the 1st prize of the Jarmila Jeřábková Award in Prague for her works A Time to Mourn and Leg acy. In 2017, she was a resident artist in SAARI, Finland, supported by the Kone Foundation. In 2018, she was awarded a Fulbright Foundation Artist Grant for artistic research in New York City, USA. In 2020, she was awarded a fellowship of the Bogliasco Foundation, completing an artistic residency in Italy. Currently, she organizes and teaches movement improvisation workshops exploring areas of her research. She is planning to pursue an artistic research PhD.
17 gestures forced and uttered
Androniki Marathaki
Born in Athens, Androniki Marathaki studied Conservation of Arts and Antiquities, as well as Dance. After receiving a grant from the National State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (IKY), she continued her studies abroad in MA level and since then evolved her own practice as research in choreography, dance making and dance teaching.
Through a necessity for a continuous update οφ the relation of dance, social mechanisms and perceptual potentialities, she composes and produces strategies for the creation of dance performances and dance workshops. The “insignificance” of triviality and movement as indications of humanity and nature, as expanding symmetries of Life and Dance, inform her performances that elaborate through/with movement-scapes and flows of movement.
Engaged in research themes for long periods of time, she collaborates with the artists Lambros Pigounis, Nysos Vasilopoulos, Filippos Vasileiou, Vitoria Kotsalou, Candy Karra, Loukiani Papadaki a.o. Over the last 4 years, she presented the fivefold performances of the thematic “Love & Revolution” and the twofold performances of the thematic “it’s not about if you will love me tomorrow”. The third part of this theme, under the title “holy purple”, is in process andwill be presented in Spring 2021.
She establishes her personal practice for dance improvisation, which she shares in workshops for multicellular groups. She is an educator of the program “Dancing to Connect,” and has been a member of the management board of National School of Dance as well as of the international panel for the 7th New Choreographers Festival. She collaborates with Duncan Dance Center in the program “Zoom in” and has worked with Konstantinos Ntellas, Eleni Efthimiou, Emmanouela Korki and Christos Rozakis.
https://vimeo.com/andronikimarathaki
it’s not about if you will love me tomorrow
Sofia Mavragani
Sofia Mavragani has graduated from the EDDC-European Dance Development Centre, ArtEZ-University of Arts, Arnhem, NL, Bachelor in Dance Making (2005) and from the “Athens School of Economics”, Bachelor in Business Administration (2000).
Her research focuses on the exploration of a performative form situated on the limits of a dance, music, or theatre performance.
Her works have been presented at several festivals and venues in Greece and abroad, such as: Aerowaves 2019, Athens & Epidaurus Festival, Documenta 14, Arc For Dance Festival (Athens), Megaron: the Athens Concert Hall, Kalamata International Dance Festival, Cyprus Contemporary Dance Festival, Dimitria Festival (Thessaloniki), MIRfestival (Athens), State Theatre of Northern Greece, Park your ID festival (Maastricht), Dance Days International Festival (Chania), Apollon Theatre (Syros), Τeatro Belisario (Buenos Aires), Teatro Labrade (Madrid), Cacoyiannis Foundation (Athens).
Being fondly interested in the field of education and exchange she develops experimental projects on improvisation and composition, such as:
Breaking Art workshop on creative collaboration between young choreographers and musicians-composers supported by Megaron – The Athens Concert Hall.
imPROject research on stage improvisation focusing on the ways in which the structures and elements of playing interfere with the artistic result.
playforPLACE research project on performing arts and artistic collaboration which has been realized in 17 cities of the world, in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Oceania.
In parallel, she teaches dance improvisation and choreography in dance schools and Dance Centers in Greece and abroad. (Duncan Dance Research Center, K3-Kampnagel/Humbourg, Garage Performing Arts Center/Corfu, CAti and TAL common space/Istanbul, espacio LEM/Buenos Aires, Tanzfabrik and HZT/Berlin, Kalamata International Dance Festival, Dimitria Festival, among others)
She is a founding member of Fingersix, an international artistic network, and of the non profit-organization Fingersix/Athens.
Sofia Mavragani’s work is regularly supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Hellenic Republic, the I. F. Costopoulos Foundation and the Duncan Dance Research Center.
Aerowaves Twenty19 Artist
Eleni Mylona
Eleni Mylona is a choreographer, researcher and performer.
Within her practice as and through research, she explores the possibilities of language and body within time and space, and the relation of language to imagination. During the last years, she has been exploring ways to read, move, exchange, and imagine together, with the intention to create intimate, caring spaces of coexistence. Her work has been invited by festivals, art fairs, and biennales and it has been shown in theaters, galleries, and experimental spaces, in Athens, Thessaloniki, Zurich, Basel, Berlin, London and Arnhem. In Zurich, she has collaborated with several institutions and companies (Tanzhaus Zürich, Rote Fabrik Theater, Holzke, Maxim Theater, Trop cher to share, Terrasse Ensemble, and others) as a maker, performer, movement practitioner and initiator of reading and writing groups.
She holds an MA in Theatre Practices, from ArtEZ University of the Arts, in Holland. (Research Entitled : ‘Language Choreography:Re-imagining Autobiographical Narratives, to Creating Fictions of Mental Motion’). She has studied dance at the National School of Dance in Greece (K.S.O.T) and holds a dance and dance teacher degree from the ‘Morianova-Trasta Professional School of Higher Education’ in Athens. She has collaborated as a performer and/or has been invited to take part in research projects with the following artists: Michael Klein, Vera Mantero, Juan Dominguez, Danae Theodoridou, Anna Sanchez, Jean-Paul Jaccarini, and others. (www.mylonaeleni.com)
Me and a fly in an empty studio
Three Orange Trees. In the future.
Dimitris Mytilinaios
Dimitris Mytilinaios has been active in the dance field since 2012. He is a graduate of the Greek National School of Dance and master exerce in Montpellier. The latter he did with the support of Onassis Foundation which offered a full scholarship (2016-2018). Throughout his artistic trajectory he has collaborated with choreographers such as Yvonne Rainer, Iris Karayan among others but he has also started developing and presenting his own choreographic work. In 2020, within the frame of Artworks Fellowship from Stavros Niarchos Foundation he started composing his next piece while working as a dancer for four other choreographers (Lenio Kaklea, Mariela Nestora, Pat Catterson, Uri Shaffir) and last but not least became part of Dancing to Connect , an educational program of Onassis Stegi working with schools around Greece.
His first choreographic work was created in 2018, with With Nefeli Asteriou: “hardly the same: a dance guide to mess up body&mind”. In the meantime, he developed the experimental practice in public space “drifting” which up to now has been activated in Chania (city in Crete) and Kypseli (Athenian neighborhood). He has also produced some short films such as “fa-rolling” (AVDP 2019). Lately, he is busy with his current research departing from ballet technique and the way it has been written, noted and evolved throughout the history of its teaching. Aiming at a kind of deconstruction of the way of thinking ballet proposes, he wishes to find alternatives in the so far established correspondence between ballet-thought and ballet-form. “INORGANIC SEQUENCES”, his upcoming (December 2021) group piece, funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, is using this research and landmarks a subversive new collaboration with the noise-punk band, Rita Mosss.
Mariela Nestora
Mariela Nestora makes performances for the stage as well as site specific and public space projects. She studied Contemporary dance and Choreography at the London Contemporary Dance School, Biology (B.Sc., Queen Mary and Westfield, U.K.), Human Molecular Genetics (M.Sc. St.Mary’s Medical School, Imperial College, U.K.), the Feldenkrais method (Greece, IFF International Feldenkrais Federation) and Master Theatre practices program at ArtEZ, Holland. She has participated in several artist collectives and occupations, instigated Collective Choreography Project-CCP and the artist-led initiative for the Greek dance scene from stage to page that includes publications of Greek choreographers’ interviews. As movement director in theatre she has worked on many projects and collaborated with several directors (Greek National Theatre, Athens & Epidaurus Festival, National Theatre of Northern Greece, Municipal Theatre of Patras, Experimental theatre festival Cairo, Patras Cultural Capital, National
Theatre of Albania and many others). She has taught movement classes and workshops to actors at the Experimental Stage of the Greek National Theatre and at the State theatre of Northern Greece.
YELP danceco. founded in London UK by Mariela Nestora is based in Athens since 2001 and has presented works in Europe (Maribor-Ljubljana/ Slovenia, Zagreb/ Croatia, Kassel-Berlin/ Germany, London-Brighton-Ipswich / U.K., Bologna/ Italy, Montpellier-Breste/France, Bucharest/ Romania, Parnu/ Estonia, Aarhus/ Denmark, Brussels/ Belgium, Athens–Kavala-Patras-Thessaloniki-Volos-Hydra-Heraclion-Chania/ Greece). YELP ‘s work has been selected by curators to participate in international dance festivals and platforms: International
Theatre System (ITI) platform, Greek Biennial Dance Platform, Athens Biennial, while productions have been co- produced by the Athens Festival, the Ministry of Culture, Kalamata International Dance festival and the Onassis Cultural foundation and performed at the Athens Festival, Onassis Cultural Center, Kalamata International Dance Festival. YELP has been regularly funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture, commissioned by Kaleidoscope
EU, Plesna Isba, Municipal Theatre of Patras, Patra Cultural Capital, The Place Commissions, The Video Place, participated in research programs and was financially assisted by Oxford Metrics, the Northern General Hospital & The Robin Howard Foundation.
https://marielanestora.wixsite.com/mariela-nestora
Efrosini Protopapa
Efrosini Protopapa is a London-based choreographer and scholar. Her research interests lie in experimental and conceptual practices across dance, theatre and performance and her work often focuses on notions of value and labour, appearance and in/visibility, negotiation and disagreement, thinking and encounter in/as performance. Following undergraduate studies at the State School of Dance, Greece, and the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Athens, she undertook an MA in Dance Studies at Laban London, funded by the State Scholarships Foundation, Greece, and the Onassis Foundation. She later completed a practice-based PhD at the University of Roehampton in London under the title: Possibilising dance: A space for thinking in choreography (2009). A winner of the Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award, Efrosini has presented choreographic work across the UK, The Netherlands, Germany and Greece. Most recently, she has been developing a choreographic research project titled the friend at work, while also exploring structures for performative dialogues with theorists, for example with Susanne Foellmer (Independent Dance, London 2018) and Konstantina Georgelou (UniArts, Helsinki 2020). Prior to this, she created a triptych of works under the title Disputatio I, II, III (2016), commissioned by Siobhan Davies Dance and presented at the Barbican Curve and other gallery spaces in the UK, with funding from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. Efrosini works as a Reader in Dance at the University of Roehampton, where she supervises practice-led PhD projects. She also teaches workshops internationally, curates research platforms and exchange events, and has published in journals, arts publications and catalogues for performance festivals. She is a co-author of the book The Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance (Valiz, 2017) with Konstantina Georgelou and Danae Theodoridou.
photo: David Oates (Variations on Alteroception, in collaboration with Emma Smith)