DANCELLS/DANCE/FESTIVAL | Three Day Dance Festival at Korydallos Penitentiary Centre I

GNO Learning & Participation 

DANCELLS/DANCE/FESTIVAL

Dance Festival · Workshops and Performances

11, 12 & 13 September 2024

Artistic curator: Ilias Chatzigeorgiou

Workshops

11, 12 & 13 September ∙ Workshop duration: 10.00-13.00

11 September · Modern dance – Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals

12 September · Breakdance & Hip Hop – Aidi Ormeni, Pavlos Lykoudis

13 September · Popping & Βreaking – Michalis Zeitinidis, Stavros Mavropoulis

Performance – Dance triptych

11 & 12 September ∙ Starts at: 19.00

Fight or Flight · Choreography: Mary Giannoula

Where the Boys Are · Choreography: Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals

The Cypher · Choreography: Ilias Chatzigeorgiou

Curation, coordination, organization of the Korydallos Penitentiary Centre: Yolanda Konstantinidou, Head of educational / cultural programs - projects of SKI

The GNO Learning & Participation in collaboration with Flux Laboratory Athens organises a three-day dance festival titled DANCELLS/DANCE/FESTIVAL and curated by the dancer and choreographer Ilias Chatzigeorgiou. The festival will bring the transformative power of dance to the Korydallos Penitentiary Centre I on 11, 12, and 13 September 2024. For three days, the inmates will have the opportunity to be swept away by the unique charm of dancing, communicate through it, freely express themselves, and co-create through their participation in interactive workshops. They will also attend a dance triptych featuring choreographies and performances by dance professionals, and take part in fruitful conversations with the artists right after the end of the shows.

On 11, 12, and 13 September 2024, the Korydallos Penitentiary Centre I will host interactive workshops of modern dance, breakdance and hip hop, and popping and breaking by Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals, Aidi Ormeni and Pavlos Lykoudis, and Michalis Zeitinidis and Stavros Mavropoulis. Participants will have the opportunity to experience different forms of dance that blend technique with free physical expression. During the workshops, under the guidance of the dance artists, participants will explore self-expression, familiarity, and memory to enhance their creativity and personal development.

On 11 and 12 September at 19.00, the Courtyard of the Penitentiary Centre will host two showings of a dance triptych featuring choreographies by Mary Giannoula, Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals, and Ilias Chatzigeorgiou, with a focus on the masculine expression of sensitivity, playful interaction, youth, loneliness, shared memories, and the revolting body.

Fight or Flight, choreographed by Mary Giannoula, is a choreographic work in progress, the result of the choreographer’s study in U(R)TOPIAS Academy of Choreography, an initiative of the modern dance group Aerites, and a production of the 2023 Eleusis Cultural Capital of Europe. The tranquility of the body while engaged in a strenuous activity, a confined space with limitless potential, is a battlefield, a place for prayer, an expression of indignation, and a promise to never give up before giving our all to the disorder of tenderness. The music of the performance was composed by Orgasma and the lyrics of the song “Prayer” were written by Aris Biniaris.

Where the Boys Are, choreographed by Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals, is a playful exploration of the crossover between dancing and martial arts. The duo explores and restructures the vocabulary of different combat techniques, while the two performers transform the arena into a zone of sensitive and familiar action, revealing different perspectives on the relationships between young men. Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals are included in the list of selected artists of the Aerowaves Network for 2024.

The Cypher, choreographed by Ilias Chatzigeorgiou, brings six dancers of the hip hop and street dance scenes together with a live DJ to perform in a dance circle. They dance for unity, companionship, victory, defeat, failure, loneliness, struggle, and love. Against war, against racism. The circle opens increasingly more, inviting the audience to join the dance. The Cypher is based on the dance performance The Olympic Cypher created and presented in a co-production by the Embassy of France and the French Institute of Greece with Flux Laboratory Athens to celebrate the entry of breakdancing as a new sport at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris in 2024.

Right after the end of the performances there will be discussions, where artists and inmates will have the chance to delve deeper into the themes that were addressed and share their personal experiences.

DANCELLS/DANCE/FESTIVAL is an original initiative by Ilias Chatzigeorgiou, which was presented and awarded by the European Network Aerowaves, as part of the Startup Forum 2024 at the Spring Forward Festival. It aspires to introduce dancing in unusual settings, enhance understanding through the universal language of dance, challenge viewpoints, inspire empathy, and encourage creativity and free expression, with a central focus on human connection, sensitivity, and personal narratives. A further goal of this project is to create connections between the participants and professionals of the dance industry, providing networking opportunities and support for inmates to smoothly reintegrate, and urging them to pursue further education, employment, and involvement in community dance programmes.

The Festival is sponsored by the European Network Aerowaves and co-funded by the European Union.

GNO Learning & Participation

DANCELLS/DANCE/FESTIVAL

Dance Festival · Workshops and Performances

11, 12 & 13 September 2024

Artistic curator: Ilias Chatzigeorgiou

Workshops

11, 12 & 13 September ∙ Workshop duration: 10.00-13.00

11 September · Modern dance – Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals

12 September · Breakdance & Hip Hop– Aidi Ormeni, Pavlos Lykoudis

13 September · Popping & Breaking – Michalis Zeitinidis, Stavros Mavropoulis

Performance ∙ Dance triptych

11 & 12 September ∙ Starts at: 19.00

Fight or Flight

Choreography, performance: Mary Giannoula

Music: Titos Grigoropoulos

Sets: Evdokia Makri, Fofo Mastori

Where the Boys Are

Choreography: Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals

Performers: Nicolas Knipping, Andrius Nekrasoff

Tour managment: ΤΙΝΑ agency

Production: explore dance – Netzwerk Tanz für junges Publikum

In collaboration with: fabrik moves Potsdam, Fokus Tanz / Tanz und Schule e.V. Munich, Κ3 | Tanzplan Hamburg και HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Dresden

The Cypher

Choreography: Ilias Chatzigeorgiou

Music, live stage performance: Alexis Falantas

Costumes: Konstantinos Priovolos / VOID

Lighting: Nikos Vlasopoulos

Performers: Sevasti Zafeira, Chara Kyriakaki, Pavlos Lykoudis, Sokratis Romfaias, Haris Hatziandreou, Aidi Ormeni

Production: Flux Laboratory Athens

Executive producer: Goodheart Productions

Curation, coordination, organization of the Korydallos Penitentiary Centre: Yolanda Konstantinidou, Head of educational / cultural programs - projects of SKI

In co-production with

Under the auspices of the Embassy of Switzerland in Greece 

The project is sponsored by the European Network Aerowaves and co-funded by the European Union

GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor