Intimate Bodies – Antigone Gyra and Joanna Kampilafka
Repertoire Workshop / Kinitiras Omega 65+
How do I prepare for a performance?
How do I get intimate with my body?
How do I get intimate with a public space and through my presence I transform it to a performance space?
Kinitiras Omega is coming back to Syros this time aiming to share a site-specific performance that is preparing in Athens, at the celebrational 10th Akropoditi Festival in Hermoupolis. The performance is dealing with the idea of intimacy trough the re-appropriation of the bodies and the public space. Through this workshop the social visibility of people and bodies of older ages is being in priority.
The performance that will be created is aiming to contribute to a creative growing up of humanity during which the body and dance will show the way to human freedom. This unique freedom that blossoms out of people who have the ownership of bodies that they love, recognize, and take care of. People who are open to new ideas and explorations regardless the date of birth that is written in their identities.
In order to continue the dialogue of Kinitiras Omega company with the habitants and visitors of the Syros, this repertoire workshop will give the opportunity to the participants to be part of the Athenian performance. They will have the chance to enter a process of corporeal and spiritual preparation in order to develop intimacy with their own body and transform it into a performative body.
The first part of the workshop consists of a movement warm up through various techniques such as yoga, pilates and physiotherapy for body strengthening and recovery while at the same time there will be movement exploration of the idea of intimacy. Following this, through movement and personal reconstitution games the group dynamics of the participants will be encouraged in order to continue to the second part of the workshop.
The second part of the workshop focuses on movement improvisations and teaching of a short choreography piece through exchange and research of ideas and movement material. The last two days will be devoted to rehearsals so that the group can share the final site-specific performance at a public space of Hermoupolis.
Ages: 65+
Levels: All
Photo credit: Δημήτρης Παρθύμος, Λήδα Τουλουμάκου
Kinitiras Ω (Omega) started in 2014 with a vision for mature adults to access dance and theater through a creative community where they can activate their bodies as well as strengthen and cultivate their creative expression.
Working with professionals from Kinitiras company, the group gained experience in co-creation, rehearsal, and production by participating in artistic events and performances. So, in addition to the performances at the end of the year, the Kinitiras Ω group inspired the documentary KIN.Ω (Chrysanthi Badeka), traveled to Esslingen, Germany, to attend the stAGE festival where they presented the work of Eros and Psychi directed by Antigone Gyra and participated in Ana Sánchez-Colberg’s Seven to Seventh Project at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation’s Summer Nostos Festival. In the last years, Kinitiras Ω has been working steadily with the AKROPODITI Dance and Performing Arts Centre based in Syros, and every summer a workshop is held – a collaboration between Kinitiras Ω and a group of 65+ permanent residents of the island – within the framework of the annual Akropoditi DanceFest.
During the academic year 2020-21 (November-April) Antigone Gyra, artistic director of Kinitiras and one of the coordinators of Kinitiras Ω, prepared – in the midst of a pandemic – a study, with the financial support of the Greek Ministry of Culture, on the subject of “Contemporary dance and dance theatre in the third age. A study on the work of the group KINITIRAS Ω”, which was presented in April 2022 at Flux Laboratory Athens, in June in the context of the first two-day workshop on dance held at ASKT and organized by SE.HO.HO. (Employees’ Union in the Dance Space) and recently in Syros at the 9th Akropoditi DanceFest.
Antigone Gyra
Antigone Gyra creates dance and theatre performances as well as video art and is the mother of three children. She graduated from the London Laban Centre with distinction, and she was awarded the Graduates’ Choreography award in 1993. In 1996 she created Kinitiras Dance Spectacle (Chorotheama) company with which she has choreographed many works up until today. She has also facilitated workshops and given lectures on dance and theatre subjects.
In 1995 she received the second award for young choreographers of Rallou Manou competition with her work “The stories, you grew up with, grew up”. Her works have been performed in Greece and abroad. In 1997 her work “Doors and Clouds” represented Greece in the Young artists Biennale in Turin and in other festivals in Greece and Italy. In 2002 her solo work “X” with Ioanna Kampylafka was qualified for the Choreography Competition in Hanover. In 2004 she created her street dance theatre works “1896” and “Lysistrata’s Cry” after being ordered by Athens 2004 Olympic Games. In 2006 she started creating her trilogy on war. The first two parts of the trilogy “«Lysistrata’s Cry» (2006) and “Klytemnistra Invisible” (2008) were chosen and performed in the 2nd and 3rd Dance Platform (Athens Megaro Mousikis). With her work “Klytemnistra Invisible” she represented Greece in the 8th International Fringe Festival in Thailand. In 2009 her work “The Net” toured in provincial areas supported by the Ministry of Culture. In February 2010 she presented her solo work “Gone” during the European program City to City Cabaret in Sofia and Athens. From 2010 until 2012 she was the artistic director of the European Network SPIDER ARTISTIC NET representing Greece. During this, she presented the third part of her trilogy “Handle with Care”.
In the theatre she has cooperated as a choreographer and movement director with many theatre companies and directors such as: Theatro Technis (G. Lazanis), THOC (Ch. Siopachas), National Theatre (G. Theodosiadis, Efi Theodorou, S,Fasoulis), Theama Company, Dh.Pe.The Kalamatas (G. Kakleas), Theatre Porta (A. Kalogridis), Theatre Mousouri (T. Vasileiou), Theatre Simio (A.Diamantis), Theatre of Neos Kosmos (D. Arapoglou), Ison Ena Company (I. Remediaki), Opsis Company (A. Tompouli), Theatre Diana (G. Paloumpis – E. Rantou), Theatre of Herodus Atticus (S.Evangelatos) etc.
In December 2008 she funded, together with Vicky Adamou and Flora Kalomoiri, the first residency centre for performing arts in Greece, Kinitiras Studio.
Since March 2017 she teaches at the drama school “Dilos-Dimitra Chatoupi” and is a member of the artistic company GAV (Gyra, Adamou, Venetsanopoulos) with which they created the performance “Deep Sigh” with the support of the Greek Ministry of Culture, as well as the action “Pop Up Readings” which was ordered by the organization of Athens International Book Capital 2018.
Antigone designed the action EK PLIXI (Sur Prise) that brings dance in schools while organizing Erasmus+ youth exchange programs with the aim of social awareness (lgbtq+, refugees, hate speech etc.). In the last two years, she carried out two choreographic researches (Femininity in transition, Contemporary Dance and Third Age) with the support of foreign bodies and the Ministry of Culture.
Ioanna Kampylafka
Ioanna Kampylafka graduated from the London Laban Centre (Bachelor of Arts in Dance Theatre) and Middlesex University (diploma in Interior Design). During the academic year 2003-2004, with a scholarship from the Fulbright Foundation, she attended various dance schools in New York (Movement Research, Trisha Brown, Dance Space, Susan Klein, Barbara Mahler). During Spring and Summer of 2007, with the support of the program of Unesco, Aschberg Bursaries for Artists, she worked as a dance teacher, choreographer, and dancer in Bangkok Thailand as a guest resident artist at the faculty of Dance School of Performing Arts. In the spring of 2008, after being invited by the organization “Temple of Fine Arts”, she taught composition and improvisation in Singapore and Malaysia.
Ioanna is member of Kinitiras since 1998 and member of the artistic collective Medea Electronique since 2008. As a choreographer she has worked with: “Splish-Splash” (Yannis Economides), Point Theatre (Nikos Diamantis), Theatre Art (Kugiumtzis), Regional Theatre of Kalamata (Stavros Tsakiris), Kalouta Theatre (George Frantzeskakis) etc. She has taught movement and improvisation in drama schools “Themelio”, “Theatre Arts”, “D.Fotiadi”, “Theatre of Changes” and “G. Theodosiades”.