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Ballet – Greek National Opera Ballet


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Greek National Opera Ballet

The Greek National Opera Ballet was founded in 1939 together with the opera department of the National (then-Royal) Theatre. Its first director was the acclaimed Czech choreographer Sasha Machov.
Initially, it operated as an opera ballet, meaning that it participated in the company’s opera and operetta productions, though it also occasionally staged it own dance performances.
Over the years, it became more ambitious and immediately after the Greek National Opera became an independent body from the National Theatre in 1944, it began presenting productions that were exclusively ballet, such as, for example, Manolis Kalomiris’s The Death of the Valiant Woman and Georgios Sklavos’s The Eagle. The company began adding grand romantic ballets to its roster in 1980. In 1994 the GNO Ballet came under the directorship of choreographer Leonidas de Pian, who was succeeded in 1999 by Anna Petrova. In 2006 the post went to the acclaimed Canadian dancer and choreographer Lynne Seymour, who was followed by Russian dancer and choreographer Irek Mukhamedov (2007-10) and then by Christiana Stefamou (2010-2011). Italian dancer and choreographer Renato Zanella took over the ensemble in the autumn of 2011. In 2016, the post went to the international Greek choreographer Antonis Foniadakis and the next year to renowned Greek choreographer, director and artist Konstantinos Rigos.
Since its founding, the GNO Ballet has worked with important Greek and foreign choreographers such as: Tatiana Varouti, Olympia Gelodari, Angelos Grimanis, Zouzou Nikoloudi, Rallou Mano, Yiannis Metsis, Leonidas de Pian, Eleni Tsoukala, Yianni Fleury, Zoe Dimitriou, Yiannis Mandafounis, Fotis Nikolaou, Constantinos Rigos, Andonis Foniadakis, Vladimir Vasiliev, Igor Zelensky, Germinal Casado, Boris Knyazev, Kenneth MacMillan, Lorca Massine, Kalina Bogoeva, Antony Tudor, Rudi van Dantzig and Rosalia Chladek. Recently the GNO Ballet has collaborated with such leading choreographers as Alexander Ekman, Nacho Duato, Marco Goecke, Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Johan Inger, Edward Clug, Cayetano Soto and others.

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Return of the summer – Greek National Opera Ballet

Greece

The Greek National Opera Ballet is travelling to the 11th International Dance and Performing Arts Festival on Syros to present the modern dance diptych titled Return of the Summer, featuring choreographies by Ioannis Mandafounis and Konstantinos Rigos. The piece Point of No Return, with music by Giorgos Koumendakis and a choreography by Ioannis Mandafounis, converses with the piece Les Nuits d’été, choreographed by the GNO Ballet Director, Konstantinos Rigos, and with music by Hector Berlioz. This combination creates an impressively vibrant and dynamic programme of modern dance. The tour is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] to enhance the Greek National Opera’s artistic outreach.

Point of No Return

In Point of No Return, the internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer Ioannis Mandafounis composes a modern piece out of dance elements deeply rooted in the tradition of classical ballet. In tune with the music of Giorgos Koumendakis, the GNO Ballet dancers focus on the transparency and authenticity of their moves via the arsenal of classical ballet steps. Although the group’s physical performance reveals an extremely classical choreographic approach, one can still recognise the individuality of the performers as well as a particularly modern treatment of the presence and interpretation of movement. These obvious elements signal the choreographer’s unique style across all of his new works.

 Les Nuits d’été

The famous song cycle Les Nuits d’été is one of Hector Berlioz’s most popular works. The leading French composer wrote these six songs for voice and piano, setting poetry by Théophile Gautier. His goal was to musically portray love in its most idealised form through delicate melodies. Based on the song cycle of the same title, Konstantinos Rigos creates together with the GNO Ballet a work about love, loneliness, the quest, the journey. Gestures and shapes create a kaleidoscope of our individual inner summer. “Les Nuits d’été is a work that makes us reminisce of all those nights we love, fall in love, dream, live… It talks about the fluidity of relationships and how everything can evolve under the moonlight. With references to Romanticism and the classical dance technique, the work’s dancers dive into the black waters of the sea and the black colour of senses and delusions”, notes Konstantinos Rigos.

Credits Point of No Return:
Choreography, costume supervision: Ioannis Mandafounis | Music: Giorgos Koumendakis
Featuring the dancers of the GNO Ballet
Women: Elena Kekkou, Marita Nikolitsa, Marta Rivero de Miranda, Eleftheria Stamou, Alicia Townsend, Despina Chrysostomou | Men: Stelios Katopodis, Manex Alberdi, Yannis Gantsios, Yannis Mitrakis, Daniele Pecorari, Stefano Pietragalla, Giorgos Hatzopoulos
The piece was performed by Antonis Sousamoglou (violin), David Bogorad (violin), Thanasis Sourgounis (viola) and Yannis Stefos (cello).

Credits Les Nuits d’été:
Choreography, set: Konstantinos Rigos | Music: Hector Berlioz | Lyrics: Théophile Gautier | Costumes: Deux Hommes
Dancers: Vangelis Bikos, Elena Kekkou, Despina Chrysostomou, Marita Nikolitsa, Eleftheria Stamou, Manex Alberdi, Yannis Gantsios, Stefano Pietragalla, Yannis Mitrakis
The piece was performed by Tassis Christoyannis (baritone) and Sofia Tamvakopoulou (piano).

* Music in both works is pre-recorded.
Appropriate for all audiences.

Duration: 65 min.
Trailer:  

GNO Production Sponsor
Antonios E. Komninos Foundation

Lead Donor of the GNO
STAVROS NIARCHOS FOUNDATION (SNF)

The work has been presented at the Greek National Opera, the SNFCC Dome, Cairo Opera House, and Vamvakou, as well as on the islands of Paros and Syros.

Konstantinos Rigos

Born in Athens, he studied economics and graduated from the Greek National School of Dance. In 1990, he founded the Oktana Dancetheatre, many productions of which have toured internationally. His shows have been featured in over 40 international festivals in many cities around the world as well as in Greece (Athens Concert Hall, Thessaloniki Concert Hall, National Theatre of Greece, National Theatre of Northern Greece, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Greek National Opera, Cyprus Theatre Organisation, Piraeus Municipal Theatre, Odeon of Herodes Atticus, etc). He has been awarded the Greek State Award for Dance (1995, 1996), the Greek State Award for Choreography (1999, 2001) and the Melina Mercouri Award (1997). He was the artistic director of the Dance Theatre of the National Theatre of Northern Greece from 2000 to 2005. He has directed plays from the Greek and international repertoire, musicals, operas, the children’s play Frutopia by Eugene Trivizas and multi-disciplinary productions (Much Ado and Nothing, Bossa Nova, Titanic, Wind for the National Theatre of Greece) in which he combines all of his capacities. Since February 2018, he has been the artistic director of the Greek National Opera Ballet; the first production he choreographed after his assumption of duties was Swan Lake. Since October 2019, he has been president of the school from which he graduated, the Greek National School of Dance.

Ioannis Mandafounis

Ioannis Mandafounis (b. 1981, Athens) studied at the Greek National School of Dance in Athens and continued his studies at the Conservatoire national supérieur in Paris (CNSMDP).
Before becoming a freelance choreographer, he was a member of the Gothenburg Opera Ballet, the Nederlands Dans Theater II, and the Forsythe Company (2005-2009).
In parallel, he started creating his own work, in Athens with Lemurius Company (since 2005), in Geneva with Fabrice Mazliah and their Cie Projet 11 (since 2007), and in Frankfurt with May Zarhy and Fabrice Mazliah and their MAMAZA collective (since 2009). Since 2015, Ioannis assumed personally the artistic direction of his Geneva-based company Cie Ioannis Mandafounis, inviting various artists to collaborate with him in each project.
He has received commissions to create original works for internationally renowned theater and dance companies, such as the Ballet of the Greek National Opera, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, The National Theater of Greece, Corpus (Royal Danish Ballet), the Lyon Opera Ballet in France, Norrdans Sweden etc.
Ioannis also teaches improvisation workshops, and classical ballet classes from his specific approach as a Martial Arts (Budo) practitioner. He has been a guest teacher in the most famous dance institutions in Europe.
In 2015, he received the Swiss Dance Award, in the category of Outstanding Male Dancer.