day out of time

“The dancing bear rises…to reincarnate society.” Tyrone O’Ros

From sunrise to sunset, a number of dancers devote the day to being in a state of dance. Each of them do so individually in selected public spaces in the centre of a city.
This practice originated as a personal need, as a way of seeking and testing the perception of dance on a personal, social, and environmental perspective. An act dedicated to the union of dance and life, an opportunity for tracing the poetry that exists both inside us and around us. A dialogue with limits and nature, calling into question the various ways in which dance emerges.
The body in dance opens out a multiplicity of meaning – its generosity offers a different kind of awareness. The dancer is within the action of his own practice inscribing new possibilities of presence. As with the qualities of ‘a gift’ the dancer demands nothing, seeks not to gain praise, but makes an embodied offer that generates reflection. This reflection implicates the body and presence of the spectator / passerby, the landscape, and the wider context of movement we are contained in.
The audience is invited to visit the dancers using an uploaded/printed map. They may visit the dancers throughout the whole day, and stay with them for however long they wish, witnessing the event.
An integral part of the practice is that there is a support team composed of volunteers (not necessarily dancers), who individually visit the dancers throughout the day, offering water, fruits, and support.

Workshop – Process
The proposed workshop will introduce students to the research and ideas behind Day Out of Time, prepare and guide them through 3 hour and 6 hour ‘Day Out of Time’ trials, and finish with a ‘Day Out of Time’ performance, in which participants will go into ‘Day Out of Time’ for the duration of a whole day, with the possibility of inviting an audience.
At the research level, ‘Day out of Time’ is a practice that can be experienced by anyone interested. The preparation includes discussion and assimilation of the philosophical as well as practical research and approach, introducing some practices that which are crucial for endurance and the handling of experience in such a dense environment as the center of a city and how to tackle the performance aspect while remaining honestly within a practice.
The overall preparation process will be adapted to the program and needs of the dancers and the allocated time.

Dance never stops, and we dancers go on in and out of his melody and expression. Perhaps our deeper ability as dancers is to receive dance, not to create it.

Day out of Time so far
Day out of Time took place for the first time on the island of Hydra in the summer of 2014 during the R.I.C.E. (www.riceonhydra.org). Since then, Vitoria Kotsalou has performed Day Out of Time, either alone or with other dancers seven times, in public places, within the framework of the Akropoditi DanceFest in Syros, at the RICEAN School of Dance in Hydra (2015-2018), in public places in Athens and during Vitoria’s residency at La Caldera in Barcelona in 2018. In summer 2017 ‘Day Out of Time’ was performed at the Athens Festival with 21 dancers taking part in the center of Athens.

Ages: Adults
Level: Open

Photo credit: Kiranna Gkioka, Eleanna Kotsikou

Vasiliki Tsagkari

Vasiliki Tsagkari has studied education at the University of Athens and dance at city of Bristol college in the UK. Then, from 2005 to 2010, she traveled in Europe and the U.S, attending classes and intensive workshops, designing, and following her own nomadic dance study program.  She has trained in contemporary dance, and she has studied somatics, improvisation and instant composition with many different international teachers.
She works as an independent dance artist for almost twenty years. She has performed with improvisation groups in the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany, and Greece. From 2006 to 2009 she has been living and working with the artists’ collective ARM in Maastricht, in the Netherlands. She has created five solo projects and has done a series of collaborations as well as group projects that have been presented in festivals, theatres, and performance spaces but also in public space, in Greece, the Netherlands, Germany. She has ongoing and long-term collaborations with Vittoria Kotsalou, Dafni Stefanou, Iris Nikolaou, Aggeliki Papadatou. She has collaborated with musicians Kaspar Koenig, Cyrille Flamment and Michalis Siganidis.
She is a certified Skinner Releasing teacher since 2016. She teaches contemporary dance, improvisation and Skinner Releasing to children and adults.
Recently she lives in Messinia, southwest Greece, where she takes care of an olive grove. Physical work close to the earth and the observation of natural elements throughout the cultivating process, have opened up a field of research that informs and influences a lot her approach to dance.