Cy.Choreography Showcase 2024-Day 3

Cyprus Choreography Showcase (SΧΚ) takes place every two years at the Rialto Theatre and aims to showcase the work of local choreographers abroad, as well as to create greater visibility for the Cypriot contemporary cultural production. The SXK has become an institutional event that presents selected choreographic pieces conceived and created in Cyprus over the past two years. More specifically, the SXK offers the opponunity to Cyprus-based choreographers to present their works, within an organised context, to anistic directors and international contemporary dance festival representatives, thus fostering collaborations with global dance networks. In this way, the Showcase enhances the choreographers’ effons for international promotion and presentation of their works abroad. At the same time, the SXK offers the chance to the local audience to re-watch some of the most memorable choreographic productions.

18:00
Έλενα Αντωνίου | Elena Antoniou
LANDSCAPE (16+)
51΄

19:30
Διαμάντω Χατζηζαχαρία | Diamanto Hadjizacharia
a dance for the end of the world
22΄

20:00
Αλέξης Βασιλείου | Alexis Vassiliou
ΘΗΡΑΜΑ | THIRAMA (18+)
45΄

21:00
Πάνος Μαλακτός | Panos Malactos
Are you OKAY?
58΄

Elena Antoniou - LANDSCAPE (16+), 51´

Poet Charles Wright characteristically notes: “All landscapes are autobiographical.” In LANDSCAPE, Elena Antoniou treats her body as a landscape. In his notes to the performer, dramaturge Odysseas I. Konstantinou writes: “You stick your butt out, you deliver your most erotic moves, you breathe, you get tired. And you are being seen and observed. And you want to be seen. And you want to be observed. And you expose yourself. And you have asked to be exposed. And that’s how you give what you’ve got, your body, primarily as something sexual. You have conceived this performance, and you are going through it. You think you are the one completing it, but you are not.” Indeed, the gaze of each viewer/observer and, respectively, the proximity or distance from which they choose to observe the body/spectacle of Elena Antoniou are the elements that complete the work. She unapologetically offers herself to the disclosure of personal experience as a collective landscape. She joyously overexposes the female body and challenges the outer limits of spectacle by skillfully inviting and provoking the viewer’s gaze. She instigates the space for the political body to present itself as deeply traumatised but also unabashedly sexual.

Elena Antoniou graduated with honours from the Greek National School of Dance and the London Contemporary Dance School “The Place” as a member of the Edge dance company. She was a scholarship recipient from the Koula Pratsika Foundation and the Danceweb Programme at ImpulsTanz Vienna. She has presented her work in Florence, Athens, Berlin, and Tel Aviv and has collaborated with significant organisations, such as the Onassis Stegi, the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI), NEON Organisation for Culture & Development, and the Athens and Epidaurus Festival. Since 2021, she has been collaborating as a performer with internationally renowned choreographer Maria Hassabi. In addition, she has also collaborated as a choreographer and movement director with theatre directors and companies in Greece and Cyprus. She received the Choreography Award of the Cyprus Theatre Awards for the play Diary of a Madman (Cyprus Theatre Organisation), and she has been nominated for the same award in 2011 for the play Beckettx5 by theatre group Solo for Three.

Conceived, Choreographed & Performed by: Elena Antoniou
Music & Sound Design: Stavros Gasparatos
AE Direction: Christos Kyriakides
Dramaturgy: Odysseas I. Konstantinou
Lighting Design: Vasilis Petinaris
Hairstyle: Angelos Pattas
Production Coordination: Alex Papasimakopoulou (International), Loukia Vassiliou
Photo Credit: Andreas Simopoulos
LANDSCAPE is supponed by Onassis Stegi's “Outward Turn” Programme

Diamanto Hadjizacharia - a dance for the end of the world, 22´

t’s the end of the world and I’m dancing in a basement / I walk the streets at dawn / everyone’s a friend on a Sunday morning / it’s the end of the world and I can’t wait / I expect nothing / less than everything / it’s the end of the world and I haven’t managed to finish a single book / I’m still looking at the screen / it’s the end of the world and I’m getting nowhere / safe / or even familiar / it’s the end of the world and I still don’t know how to dance / I’m free at last / it’s the end of the world / and the beginning of our lives.

It’s the end of the world but not for us.

Diamanto Hadjizacharia (Limassol, 1997) graduated as a contemporary dancer from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, and as a choreographer from Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD). She is currently attending the Master’s programme “Performance Practices” at AnEZ University of the Ans. As a performer, she has collaborated with choreographers Hofesh Shechter, Hagit Yakira, James Finnemore, Maria Kamberis, and Elena Christodoulidou. Some of her mentors were Sabina Holzer (AT), Patricia Apergi (GR), Pavlos Kountouriotis (NL), Mary Nunan (IE) and Dara Milovanovic (CY). Her anistic practice challenges conventional approaches to anmaking in an attempt to explore and redefine its boundaries. Her choreographic works were presented at festivals in Ponugal, Greece, the UK, and Cyprus.

Choreography: Diamanto Hadjizacharia
Performance: Areti Chourdaki, Elina Karacosta, Julie Charalambidou
Assistant Choreographer: Marita Anastasi
Original Music Composition: Marcos Shukuroglou
Lighting Design: Panayiotis Manousis
Photos: Andreas Nikolaou

Alexis Vassiliou - THIRAMA (18+) 45´

In his new work ΤΗΙRAMA, Alexis Vassiliou continues the research he began in 2020 with the creation of the shon film entitled ΕΓΚΑΤΑ (EGATA) and the performance SAKRA in 2022, attempting once again to reconstruct a rhythmic, acoustic, and bodily ritual on the origins of language, emotions and the human experience.

Alexis Vassiliou was born in 1978 (Cyprus). He studied Dance at Trinity-Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, UK (Diploma in Dance Studies), Music at the University of East Anglia, UK (Β.Α in Music), and Composition of Music for Films and Theatre at the University of Bristol, UK (MA). In 2008, he received a scholarship (Dance-Web) as pan of the 25th ΙmpulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival. During 2012 and 2013, he was selected to panicipate (anistic residency) in two European programmes (E-motional Bodies and Cities and Act Your Age). In 2014, with his work Please Be Gentle, Alexis was selected in the final twenty anists of the Aerowaves network. He directed and choreographed various works that were presented at festivals locally and abroad. From 2016 until October 2023, he was the general and anistic director of Dance House Lemesos. In October 2023, he was appointed as the deputy director of Rialto Theatre.

Concept, Direction, Choreography: Alexis Vassiliou
Performers: Arianna Marcoulides, Loukia Pieridou, Βianca Casaburi, Rafael Candela, Huben Mielke
Music Score Composition/Development: Alexis Vassiliou
Music Composition-Instrumentation & Sound Design: Marianna Michael
Voice Coach: Cοnstantine Andronikou
Lighting Design: Aleksandar Jotovic
Photos: Stelios Kallinikou
Graphic Design: Philippos Vassiliades
Μain Sponsor: Depanment of Contemporary Culture, Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture
Production: Nothing to Declare

Panos Malactos - Are you OKAY? 58´

Instead of a title, Panos Malactos asks the simple but at the same time so hard, almost provocative, question: “ARE YOU OKAY?”. Opening the labyrinthine chapter of mental health, with queer boldness and, at the same time, genuine sensitivity, the piece is based on the personal stories of the dancers, the choreographer, and the audience, interweaving them with the culture of rave panies, techno music and with the aesthetic references that have shaped the choreographer’s anistic identity to this day.

Panos Malactos (born in Cyprus, 1994) has been working with Peeping Tom in Belgium since 2020. At the age of 17, he moved to London to study Musical Theatre with a scholarship (Dance and Drama Award) at the Bird College. He then continued his training at the Ramben School where he obtained his “BA Degree in Ballet and Contemporary Dance”. After graduating, he moved to Israel to work with Fresco Dance Company and spent some time with Inbal Dance Theatre working with the choreographers Mor Shani and Noa Shadur. In 2019, he joined a collaboration between the Festspielhaus St. Pölten in Austria and Batsheva Dance Company, performing Deca Dance by Ohad Naharin and a new creation Ballroom by Shahar Binyamini. Panos also worked with KENZO Paris (FR), Compagnie Tabea Manin (CH), Liliana Barros (DE), Jason Mabana Dance (UK), Emma Evelein Dance (NL), X-it Dance Theatre (CY/GR), Milena Ugren Koulas (CY), Asomates Dynamis Dance Company (CY), Andre Uerba (DE), and collaborated multiple times with Greek director Elias Adam as a performer and choreographer. His choreographic works have travelled to New Zealand and all over Europe.

WARNING - STROBE LIGHT WILL BE USED FOR THIS PERFORMANCE

Choreographer: Panos Malactos
Performers: Apollonas Anastasiades, Styliana Apostolou, Magda Argyridou, Chris Mills, Tzini Sakaloglou, Melina Sofocleous
Dramaturge: Ody Icon
Music Producer: Die Arkitekt
Costume Designer: Orestis Lazouras
Lighting Designer: Vasilis Petinaris
Produced by: Nea Kinisi