Posts Tagged :

improvisation

Improvisation – Petros Nikolidis & Stefanos Giakoumakis 819 1024 akropoditi13

Improvisation – Petros Nikolidis & Stefanos Giakoumakis

Levitate
Improvisation workshop with live music

Levitate is a workshop accessible to people of all physical abilities, inviting participants to explore the living relationship between sound and movement.
Through a movement vocabulary inspired by street dance and contemporary dance, and guided by Petros Nikolidis, participants are invited to enter into dialogue with music created live in the moment by Stefanos Giakoumakis.
Participation is adapted to each individual’s abilities and needs — ranging from full-bodied movement to micro-movements, gestures, breath, vibration, or visual cues. Physical diversity is approached as a source of creativity and transformed into a tool for connection and exchange.

Ages: 12+
Levels: All

 

Photo credit:

 

Petros Nikolidis

Petros Nikolidis is a dancer, choreographer, and performer based in Greece. He was born in 1997 in Thessaloniki and studied dance in Paris, where he primarily focused on street styles. He graduated from Juste Debout School in 2019 and returned to Athens due to the pandemic. Since then, among other projects, he has participated for four consecutive years in the Athens & Epidaurus Festival, collaborating with various choreographers and directors such as Dimitris Papaioannou, Antonis Foniadakis, Giannis Kakleas, Andi Xhuma, Anastasia Valsamaki, and Ilias Chatzigeorgiou. At the same time, he has created his own works, including the short dance film “AGKATHI”, which has competed in various festivals worldwide; the dance performance Levitate (2025, Dance Laboratory Rhodes, Embros Theatre, Roes Theatre); and the dance performance Kinèpha, which premiered at the 1st Urban Forest Jazz Festival (2025). He is also assistant choreographer and co-creator of the performance “CHRYSI EPOHI” by Konstantinos Rigos (2025). Throughout his career, he has received distinctions in Street Dance Battles in Greece and abroad. Petros strives to remain multidimensional and to expand his horizons across all aspects of art.

Stefanos Giakoumakis

Stefanos Giakoumakis is a musician, composer, and producer born in Athens in 1998. He studied at the Department of International, European and Regional Studies at Panteion University. In parallel, he completed his studies in modern jazz music and electric guitar, while also attending thematic courses in art history, music history, and composition. In recent years, he has been exploring the role of music as a narrative tool. He has composed original music for theatre performances, contemporary dance productions, and art installations, frequently performing his own works live. He has also served as Production Director of the contemporary dance festival Dance Laboratory Rhodes (2023, 2024, 2025), while participating as a producer in film shoots and live performances. His works have been presented, among others, at: Kalamata Dance Festival, Fringe Istanbul Festival, Patras Art Festival, Dance Laboratory Rhodes, Our Festival, Buzau International Arts Festival, Duets and others.

Sensorial theatre – Diana Ferrantini-Teatro del Lemming ETS 819 1024 akropoditi13

Sensorial theatre – Diana Ferrantini-Teatro del Lemming ETS

The five senses of the actor
Sensorial theatre workshop

This workshop will be a first exploration of the particular methodology that Teatro del Lemming has developed since its inception in the late 80’s. The peculiarity of Lemming’s work is the use of the senses. The works of the company are based on the sensorial and dramaturgical involvement of the audience hence the performer has to be a guide for the spectator.
The performer is a GUIDE: the one who is able to lead the spectator in the beyond of performance. To be a guide, the performer has to improve her skills of LISTENING – ADAPTATION – DIALOGUE. The main instrument of this research is the body. The sense/the senses of the body. In this type of scenic work, the body is not a prosthesis of the mind, but is fullness, is something naked that permits the nakedness of the aim and the truth of the encounter with other aims and other bodies. “For us the five senses of the performer are an appeal to fullness of life and a way to reach the beyond of performance and the creative skills of the performer.”

Ages: 17+
Level: All

* Participants are asked to be white or black dressed and to come with a notebook and a pen, a blindfold, a candle with candle-holder, and a blanket/rug/sea-towel
** The workshop will be held in English

Photo credit:

 

Teatro del Lemming

Teatro del Lemming is an experimental theatre company founded in 1987 by Massimo Munaro and Martino Ferrari. They are recognised as one of the leading companies of the new Italian and European theatre. “THE SPECTATOR’S THEATRE” is the poetics originated and developed by Teatro del Lemming over the past 40 years. Within this framework they question the relation between actor and spectator. During the last sixteen years their research has focused on myth. Through the myth, the actors build bridges between them and the spectators, crossing all conventional barriers and borders and thereby create a real human relation.
https://teatrodellemming.it/

Improvisation – Revekka Tsiligaridou 819 1024 akropoditi13

Improvisation – Revekka Tsiligaridou

Viewpoints – The moment before
Improvisation Workshop

Viewpoints is a method of improvisation and composition that unfolds in the here and now. The aim of the workshop is for participants to cultivate a deeper physical and intellectual understanding of how they inhabit space and time, both individually and collectively. By exploring the nine viewpoints (tempo, duration, kinesthetic response, repetition, spatial relationship, topography, architecture, shape, gesture) and using the tools this method provides, we will investigate what a single moment contains and what takes place just before it. What is its condensation, what is its echo? We will focus on the “small” in order to question the “large,” bringing awareness to what each moment inherently holds and allowing room for the accidental. As deeper “listeners” to the relationships that arise in the stage’s “here and now,” we will develop an expanded sense of our presence—an awareness of the whole to which we belong, while simultaneously cultivating depth and flexibility in our physical expression. The goal is to redefine performative practice and to experiment with the infinite possibilities of stage composition.

Ages:  17 – 55
Level: actors/actresses, dancers, directors, but also amateurs with an interest in dance and theatre

 

Photo credit:

 

Revekka Tsiligaridou

Revekka Tsiligaridou is an actress and a graduate of the National Theatre of Northern Greece Drama School (2004), where she now also teaches acting, specializing in the “Viewpoints” method. She is an Adjunct Lecturer for the Spring semester of the 2024–2025 academic year at the Department of Theatre of the School of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She also teaches Acting at the Neoelliniko Theatro drama school. She has participated in numerous productions of the National Theatre of Greece, the National Theatre of Northern Greece, the Onassis Stegi, the Karolos Koun Art Theatre, among others. As an actress, she has appeared in theatrical productions at the Avignon Festival, the Athens Festival, as well as in theatres in Paris, New York, and Heidelberg. She is a founding member of the theatre group “Kanigunda” (2005–2013). She specializes in the acting, improvisation, and composition method known as “Viewpoints,” in which she trained under Anne Bogart and the SITI Company in New York. She now teaches and applies this method across various drama schools, workshops, and theatrical productions. In 2023–2024, she directed and developed the text for the work The Man Who Passed By, or I’m Interested, Roula, a piece created through the Viewpoints method. The production was staged in Athens (KET), in Thessaloniki as part of the “Open City Stage 2024” institution, and in Larissa.

Improvisation – Federica Porello 819 1024 akropoditi13

Improvisation – Federica Porello

OBJECTS DANCE
Improvisation workshop

“We don’t play with things nor with images, we play with objects that at the same time bend and resist to our desires. We are with them in a state of union and separation. To play with things is to be in union with them in the very place of our separation”.
Francis Ponge

Object dance is based in the inter-relation between objects and movement. A dialogue between the physical properties of objects (texture, form, weight), and a vocabulary of actions from which the dance emerge. The “things” with which we’ll work are objects without history nor meaning (pieces of wood, threads, elastics…), that have the capacity to give us a tangible experience of connecting with others, to expand our notion and perception of our individual body and to reveal stories and meanings thanks to their connection to the body and movement.
The workshop proposes tools for improvisation based on listening to the rhythms of each body and exploring the range of physical possibilities in relation to muscle tone, articulation, dynamics of movement, fragmentation of the actions of the individual body and the “group body”.
The objects will be our partners, an extension of our bodies and our landscape.

Ages: 14+
Level: All

 

Photo credit:

 

Federica Porello

(Genova, 1981)
Federica Porellois a dancer and pedagogue based in Catalunya. She studied at P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) in Brussels. After finishing her education in 2006, she worked with the choreographer Marlene Freitas, the theatre company Tg STAN, the visual artist Anne Katherine Dolven, the puppeteer Merlin Borg, the choreographer Albert Quesada, and the shadow theater company Le Théâtre de Nuit. In 2012 she co-founded the Group LaBolsa, with seven independent artists who shared complementary concerns towards movement investigation and staging improvisation. In 2013, she joins the Catalan company Mal Pelo as interpreter and artistic assistant; in 2016 the company ZOO/Thomas Hauert, while regularly developing collaborations with dancers and musicians for the creation of interdisciplinary performances. In her work she investigates hybrid performative languages, linking movement improvisation and objects manipulation. This research brought to the development of the Objects Dance, a set of tools for improvising with objects, and the creation of the trio performance WeWood, the solo Nowhen, and the quartet VICINI. The last one is strongly influenced by the desire to explore how a poetic gesture can have a political impact, and how to use dance as a means of expression and resistance.

Improvisation for people with and without disabilities – Anna Vekiari 1024 1024 akropoditi13

Improvisation for people with and without disabilities – Anna Vekiari

Living Statue
Improvisation workshop for people with and without disabilities

This year’s workshop inspired by the art of tableau vivant will focus on the creation of static and moving images. The use of negative space and contact will be our most important tools throughout the workshop. At the end of the workshop there will be an open presentation in an outdoor space. For the smooth running of the workshop, attendance is required on all days.

OPEN PRESENTATION
We invite you to the open presentation of the workshop “Living Statue” by Anna Vekiari on Sunday 20/07 at 19:30 at the 4th Elementary School.
(Free entrance)

Ages: All
Levels: Disabled and non-disabled people who have movement experience (professional dancers, actors, special education professionals, group facilitators, etc.)

Photo credit:

Anna Vekiari

Artistic Director of EXIS, Dance Instructor, Dancer, Dance Therapist
Anna Vekiari was born and raised in Athens. She is the founder and artistic director of the professional inclusive contemporary dance company EXIS and co-owner of ISON Theatre – Dance, the first workshop for inclusive education (disabled and non-disabled) for theatre and dance in Athens. She graduated from the Anna Petrova Higher Professional School of Dance in 2010. She is a senior dance therapist at the Greek Dance Therapists Association and a Polestar Pilates instructor. She has attended seminars and dance classes in Greece and abroad. She has worked as a choreographer and assistant director in theatrical performances and has attended the theatrical lighting design workshop with Katerina Maragoudaki. In the summer of 2012 she attended the DanceAbility Teacher Training with Alito Alessi, improvisation/contact improvisation method for inclusive groups, in Vienna and since then she has been working as a dance teacher in an inclusive context with children and adults. She has collaborated with various associations MDA (Association for the Care of People with Neuromuscular Diseases), SamSkP (Association of People with Multiple Sclerosis), PEGKAP – NY (Panhellenic Association of Parents and Guardians of Mentally Retarded Children), Prototype Center of Haidari etc. and with special and general education schools. In the academic year 2020-2021 she collaborated with KEA-AMEA (Centre for Vocational Rehabilitation of People with Disabilities) as a choreographer in the framework of the action “Performing Arts Workshops for Social Inclusion” for the promotion of universal accessibility for people with disabilities in culture, under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. She has worked with groups and inclusive organisations in Greece and abroad. In February 2023 she was accepted to the Alleyne Dance Mentorship Programme for young choreographers. In 2015 she created the professional inclusive contemporary dance group EXIS in which she choreographs and organizes seminars (Akropoditi Dance Festival, Lyric Stage, Mill of Performing Arts, Cumana Dance, Forward Theatre etc.). Currently she has been participating in European projects and collaborating with inclusive dance groups and inclusive institutions from abroad.

Contemporary Dance and Improvisation – Penelope Morout 819 1024 akropoditi13

Contemporary Dance and Improvisation – Penelope Morout

Sculpting Body-Images
Contemporary Dance and Improvisation masterclass

Sculpting Body-Images is a movement workshop of intense physicality, shaped to bring awareness to the conscious act of offering, seeing and perceiving the body in relation to interchangeable elements. All participants are invited to engage into a mapping process: through tasked-based improvisation (body & voice) and game-like situations inspired by Fighting Monkey Practice (founded by Linda Kapetanea & Jozef Frucek), we will recognize-deconstruct-reconstruct personal patterns, identify compositional modes of working, and reflect upon the relationship between what is presented and how it is presented. We will work both alone and in couples or groups. There will be physical contact in order to manipulate the body and we will focus on stimulating the nervous system, increasing stamina and developing motor skills that improve agility through coordination, rhythm and elastic footwork skills.
Building upon the idea of a caring, judgment-free community, where all members are encouraged to embrace their individuality and weave their unique artistic voice, we will approach physical exploration with curiosity, playfulness and generosity.
SBI is a story-telling practice: it is about approaching the moving body from a 360° view and consciously choosing how, what and why we want to communicate with the world. All stories matter: they nourish our interaction with others and our connection with ourselves.

Ages: 17+
Level: Open Level (due to the workshop’s intense Physicality, a familiarity and/or previous experience with movement (dance, sports, physical activities etc.) is recommended, but not mandatory)

 

Photo credit:

Penelope Morout

Founder of CROSS IMPACT Company, is an interdisciplinary dance artist, intrigued by creating hybrid projects through the fusion of various performing and visual art mediums. Graduated from the National School of Dance (Athens) and the National Technical University of Athens – School of Architecture, with a Master’s degree in Theatre Practices from ArtEZ University of the Arts (NL), her artistic identity lies on a durational creative process, during which academic and artistic research are intrinsically connected with her movement practice. Her latest performance EMOTIONAL DOGS was realized under the auspices and the financial support of the Greek Ministry of Culture and, continuing having the support of the latter as well as of THE J.F. Costopoulos Foundation, is scheduled to tour during 2025.
Penelope works constantly between Greece and abroad as a performer, choreographer, dance teacher and scenographer. As a filmmaker she has participated in exhibitions and video dance & dance animation festivals worldwide. As an educator, she has shaped her own movement practice “Sculpting Body-Images”, which she shares around the world (PERA GAU School of Performing Arts, Munus Encuentro Mexico, Nunart Guinardó Barcelona, Points to Play Mulhouse, Akropoditi International Dance and Performing Arts Festival Syros, Unplugged Dance Lefkada, Kalamata International Dance Festival). Penelope implements in her teaching methodology elements inspired by “Fighting Monkey”, a practice by Linda Kapetanea and Jozef Frucek, with whom she has been training for 15 years.

Open Jam – Dance and Music Free Improvisation 1024 1024 akropoditi13

Open Jam – Dance and Music Free Improvisation

Open Jam – Improvisation in movement and sound led by Niki Stergiou.
We invite you to an improv jam – an open space for practice, exploration and experimentation – to move and converse through dance and music.
The jam is open to everyone, musicians and dancers, regardless of movement experience, to create a musical-kinetic improvisation together, with free participation.

Dance Improvisation for people with and without disabilities – Anna Vekiari 1024 1024 akropoditi13

Dance Improvisation for people with and without disabilities – Anna Vekiari

The importance of personal development and coexistence within a diverse group
Dance Improvisation workshop for people with and without disabilities

Movement is the mirror of personality. It influences and creates changes in the psyche. It is the result of heredity, nurture, and social influences. According to Laban, “Behind our every movement is an intention. “When I am able to recognize it, then its expression becomes conscious and empowers the individual and his presence. Our meetings are aimed at getting in touch with the subjective preference for movement, self-awareness and recognition of the innate qualities and dynamics of the body. We will also explore the movement elements that “were not developed as much as others”. We will create a personal movement map. Key components of the research we will do are Intention, Weight, Flow and Time. The workshop draws from Laban and DanceAbility methods. It aims at awareness and insider contact with subjective movement preferences, co-educating through the inclusive nature of the. It focuses on the uniqueness of each body and expands personal and social skills. We will attempt a simultaneous exploration of “inside-self”, with “outside- group”. We focus on connection and work with solos, duets, small and large group.
The workshop is for people with and without disabilities, with previous experience in movement

OPEN PRESENTATION
We invite you to the open presentation of the workshop “The importance of personal development and coexistence within a diverse group” by Anna Vekiari on Wednesday 17/07 at 4th Elementary School (Nik. Mandilara 22, Ermoupoli) at 18:30.
(Free entrance)

Ages: 15+
Levels: The workshop is for people with and without disabilities, with previous experience in movement

Photo credit:

Anna Vekiari

Anna Vekiari was born and grew up in Athens. She is the founder and the artistic director of the professional inclusive dance company Exis and the co-founder of ISON Dance Theater – the first training facility for performing arts for disabled and non-disabled performers in Athens. She graduated from the Professional Dance Academy “Anna Petrova” in 2010. She is a dance therapist from the Greek Dance Therapy Union and a Polestar Pilates Instructor. She is a certified DanceAbility teacher, a method of contemporary dance and improvisation for inclusive dance groups created by Alito Alessi. Since 2012 she teaches classical, contemporary and improvisation dance to children and adults with or without disabilities, in an inclusive concept. She has collaborated with many Associations for disabled people like MDA for Neuro-Muscular conditions, PEGKAP for learning disabilities and the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation in Greece, KEA-AMEA – Vocational Rehabilitation Center for People with Disabilities, many schools for disabled children and several inclusive organisations and dance festivals in Greece and abroad. In 2021 she was the artistic director of the Erasmus plus project “CONTACT”. Contact project focuses on contact and inclusion through dance and music. She collaborates with inclusive As a dance therapist she has collaborated with EPAPSY – Association for Regional Development and Mental Health and currently collaborates with IASIS ΝGO DAY CENTER for Mental Health.

Movement in water – Vitoria Kotsalou 1024 1024 akropoditi13

Movement in water – Vitoria Kotsalou

BARE UNDERWATER
Movement workshop in water

The workshop explores the sea as a field that enables us to activate very different fields of movement, embodiment, and imagination. In the workshop we will explore concepts, movements, patterns, and ways of being that develop or unfold from being within and friction with water. Manoeuvring, breathing, floating, and dreaming are the key elements through which we will begin to penetrate different modes of dance/embodiment/movement/existence. Axes that have emerged from years of dance research in the water will lead us to develop strategies for exploring navigation of thought body. The workshop will expand in out of water practice as well, where we will have the opportunity to engage with how the water dance (amneotics) practice informs our dance practice on land.

Ages: Adults
Level: Skilled swimmers

Photo credit:

Vitoria Kotsalou

Vitoria Kotsalou is a psychologist and a self-trained dancer, performer, and choreographer based in Athens. Her eclectic training, not bound by one tradition, and constant research from many different disciplines carve out new fields of engagement for dance immediation. As a choreographer and artist, she operates dance as a way of being, a means of thinking and assimilating the world, and as a field of connection to the intelligence that governs the nature of things.
Vitoria is one of the founding members of the non-profit organization R.I.C.E. and the RSOD Dance School on the island of Hydra. She is a close collaborator of choreographer Michael Klien and a member of En Dynamei Ensemble since 2014. As a choreographer, she has composed the works Day out of Time (2017), Mount (2019), Rite of Spring – A Map (2021), Solar (With En Dynamei Ensemble-2023), Bare (2023). As a dancer, she has made important collaborations with Androniki Marathaki, Mariella Nestora, and Agni Papadeli Rossetou. She teaches dance to children, adults, and mixed-ability groups, and also choreographs theatre performances.
Vitoria approaches dance as a phenomenon of life, that has the potential to touch all socio-political aspects of society. Her passion, belief, and experience in the possibility of dance a force, that enables different ways of being, communicating, and forming relationships, expands to thinking through movement and coming into contact with an intelligence that exists in (and connects) all living organisms. Drawing inspiration from the study of different artistic practices, philosophical approaches, and collaborations, her thinking extends to social choreography through which she simultaneously observes the world and designs works that convey the possibility of changing or expanding the way it is perceived.

Improvisation – Stavroula Siamou 1024 1024 akropoditi13

Improvisation – Stavroula Siamou

Momentum and stillness
Improvisation Workshop

A significant part of our dance education focuses on the exact positioning of our body in space. An admirable virtue indeed. Still there is the thrill of speed and momentum that often defies the sobriety of stillness. How can we be open to a vibrant dialogue between these two parameters of movement? Can we appreciate the unique qualities of Apollonian precision on one hand and Dionysian momentum on the other? Is there a clear boundary between them?
5 days to ask and explore, to move and be still.

Level: All
Ages: All

 

Photo credit:

Stavroula Siamou

She was born in Athens in 1967. She graduated from the State School of Dance and continued her studies in New York, her main interests being in improvisation and release technique.
Upon her return in Greece, she danced with various dance companies, Edafos company, Sine Qua Non and Tzeni Argyriou being her long-time collaborators. In theatre she has co-directed Macbeth (W. Shakespeare), Mandragora (N. Machiavelli) at the Theatre of Neos Kosmos and has collaborated with various directors as a choreographer.