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vertical dance

Swell – Despina Lloyd Goula and Ioanna Antonarou 1024 1024 akropoditi13

Swell – Despina Lloyd Goula and Ioanna Antonarou

Greece

Vertical Dance Performance

The arrival of swells on a shoreline are often created by storms thousands of miles away, it’s the reason why we can often see big waves crashing onto a beach on a calm day.
Two bodies are suspended on ropes. Their movement mirror and connect to the waters around them, holding on to the notion that we are created in water and made of water. The attachment of the rope coming from the centre of the body acts as an umbilical cord and the architecture which is dance on becomes the mother. Like the swells of the sea an action in one place can be seen or felt thousands of miles away

Credits
Performers: Despina Lloyd Goula, Ioanna Antonarou
Rigger: Giannis Psarros
Music: Yosi Horikawa

Duration: 15 min.
Trailer:

Despina Lloyd Goula

Despina is a Greek/Welsh Independent Dance Artist, with a BA (Hons) in Dance from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff. Since 2010 she has specialised in vertical dance. She works for the company Vertical Dance Kate Lawrence as a harness based aerial dancer and has enjoyed performing in many of the company’s works nationally and internationally. In August 2015, Despina received the opportunity to train and perform with ‘Aeriosa’ a vertical dance company based in Vancouver, funded by Wales Arts International. The summer of 2016 she worked with the Aerial dance company Off Off devising and performing a site-specific show in the Swiss City of Basel.
She has trained with international vertical dance artists Julia Taffe, Wanda Moretti, and Lindsey Butcher.
In January 2018 Despina was awarded Arts Council of Wales funding for her own research and development project creating an interactive art installation through the medium of vertical dance. In 2019 Despina premiered her own production which she choreographed and danced in ‘Roots in the Sky’ at ARC dance festival in Athens. She has worked as a freelance dance practitioner for community and inclusive dance-based companies in North Wales, such as Dawns I Bawb, Little Light and Conwy Expressive Arts, developing strong links with local community delivering dance to all ages and abilities.

Ioanna Antonarou

Ioanna Antonarou was born in Athens, in 1985. She graduated from the Greek State School of Dance in 2012. She is studying at the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering at the University of the Aegean in Syros.
As a dancer – performer she collaborated with: Akropoditi Dancetheatre, Octana Dancetheatre/ Konstantinos Rigos and Iraqi Bodies. In June 2017 she participated in “Day out of Time” project initiated by Vitoria Kotsalou at the Athens & Epidaurus Festival.
As an assistant choreographer she collaborated with Christos Papadopoulos for his production “Ion”.
In autumn 2016 she collaborated with SQx Dance Company, and she taught contemporary dance at Canadian schools.
She and Natasha Sarantopoulou have been working together since 2017, and together they co-choreographed the performances “Walk Lola Walk,” “It’s better in the BAHAMAS,” “JAMAIS VU,” and “SAUVAGE.”
She lives in Athens where she teaches contemporary and classical dance.
She is a member of the artistic board for the administration and the management of the International Dance & Performing Arts Festival “Akropoditi DanceFest”.

Vertical Dance – Despina Lloyd Goula 1024 1024 akropoditi13

Vertical Dance – Despina Lloyd Goula

Vertical dance is an emerging contemporary artistic language that typically uses rock climbing equipment (ropes, harness and abseil devices) to suspend dancers off the ground on a range of vertical surfaces.
The vertical walls become the dance floor. Dancers will have the opportunity to explore the unusual sensation of dancing in the air. We will firstly focus on equipment introduction, followed by harness techniques, spatial orientation, and learn sequence’s from Despina’s repertoire. Further into the workshop, we will use guided improvisation to explore this new vertical territory creatively.

Ages: 15+
Levels: Movers group: A group of people with movement experience and good physical condition.

Photo credit: Sarah Bruat, RGB Studios

 

Despina Lloyd Goula

Despina is a Greek/Welsh Independent Dance Artist, with a BA (Hons) in Dance from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff. Since 2010 she has specialised in vertical dance. She works for the company Vertical Dance Kate Lawrence as a harness based aerial dancer and has enjoyed performing in many of the company’s works nationally and internationally. In August 2015, Despina received the opportunity to
train and perform with ‘Aeriosa’ a vertical dance company based in Vancouver, funded by Wales Arts International. The summer of 2016 she worked with the Aerial dance company Off Off devising and performing a site-specific show in the Swiss City of Basel.
She has trained with international vertical dance artists Julia Taffe, Wanda Moretti and Lindsey Butcher.
In January 2018 Despina was awarded Arts Council of Wales funding for her own research and development project creating an interactive art installation through the medium of vertical dance. In 2019 Despina premiered her own production which she choreographed and danced in,‘Roots in the Sky’, at ARC dance festival in Athens. She has worked as a freelance dance practitioner for community and inclusive dance-based companies in North Wales, such as Dawns I Bawb, Little Light and Conwy Expressive Arts, developing strong links with local community, delivering dance to all ages and abilities.