The new work by Aerites Dance Company examines the streets and the tropes of the urban condition in its current state as well as in its transformation to something different. The city, the body, the dwellings and their ghosts, the unexpected and the continuous, the novel tactics of the urban experience and its tragic and comic aspects, become the company’s raw material.
If it is true that what characterizes cities like Athens in the 21st century is incompleteness, endlessness and the myriad interventions mainly from below to above with which they go along ensuring their longevity, then Aerites’ work has no other ambition but to capture this yet undefined spirit and its other and still “uncategorized” rhythm.
If it is true that the city happens, with oscillating dynamics, immaterial networks that interact with the landscape and the living beings in it, with episodes, patterns, non-sensical elements and painful certainties, Aerites cannot but include that disquietude in their work.
If it is true that street languages have been drastically differentiated, since reality is imposing itself on its aestheticization; if it is true that the commons are becoming the new way of perceiving the public sphere and that the “crowd” is replacing the “people” in public discussion and as the conception of the public and the private life are being transmuted, then this other urban culture appears as something painfully elusive, full of conflict, and seductively unclear.
Exhausted and at the same time aggressive, broken and because of that full of potential, it is the city (material and immaterial, living and non-living) that primarily choreographs the performance Era poVera. Movement, music, visual approach, lighting and costume design are organically combined to create the texture, the tone, the shiver and the symbolic shadowy light which characterize the performance, as well as the convulsive behaviours, sound and breath that make it come alive. In that sense Aerites’ work does not aim to depict street life in Athens or add material to the folklore that has been developed around the subject, but would rather capture the rhythm that guides this city, and others like it, towards their future.

Nadia Arguropoulou

Source: www.aerites.com

Credits

Creation: 2012
Choreography: Patricia Apergi

Music Composition: Dimosthenis Grivas

Set: Andreas Ragnar Kasapis

Costumes: Aggelos Mentis

Lighting Design: Nikos Vlasopoulos

Dramaturgy: Georgina Kakoudaki

Consultant for the visual: Nadia Arguropoulou

Script: Dimitris Halazonitis, Patricia Apergi

Assistant Choreographer: Dimitra Mitropoulou

Photography: Tasos Vrettos


Performers, Creative Contributors: Ilias Chatzigeorgiou, Nontas Damopoulos, Giannis Emmanouilidis, Chara Kotsali, Maro Marmarinou, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Konstantinos Rizos, Dimokritos Sifakis 

Musicians: Orestis Chatzitheodorou, Dimosthenis Grivas, Danae Nielsen



Was born in Athens. She completed her education in the disciplines of dance, theatre and choreography at the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens (Department of Theatre Studies), the Niki Kotaxaki Dance School, the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis and the Middlesex University London.

Ιn April 2006, she found the Aerites Dance Company, with which she has choreographed the pieces: Hero (2020), Polittes (Citizens Defeated) (2018), Cementary (2017), TANZheimer (2014), Planites (2013), Era poVera (2012), The Manifest of the Other (2010), d.opa! (dopamines of post-Athenians) (2009), Ferry Tales (2009), Apolost (2008) and Anorexia Socialis (2007).

Her works have toured in various dance festivals and venues around the world.

She has choreographed theatrical plays and operas in collaboration with distinguished Greek and foreign artists.

She was selected as modul-dance artist of the European network EDΝ for the period 2013–2014, and as an associate artist at Maison de la danse (Lyon) for the period 2016–2017.

In 2017, she was invited as a guest choreographer to the dance company EgriBiancoDanza (Turin), where she choreographed the piece Prometheus and the Rebels of Today.

In 2018, she choreographed the installation Τhe Primary Fact of visual artist Hikaru Fujii in the context of the 5th Fast Forward Festival of Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens and the piece Polittes (citizens defeated, revisited) at the Ancient Stadium of Epidaurus with 90 students of dance and theatre from all over the world, in the context of Athens and Epidaurus Festival.

In 2019, she was invited as a guest choreographer to the Aterballetto company in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where she created a piece for 30 dance students in the frame of the Agora project.

In 2021, she choreographed the piece National Adulthood for the Greek National Ballet.

Since 2019, she is part of the Board of Directors at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival.

She is a co-writer of the book History of Theatre and Theatrical Education (Greek Ministry of Education, Educational Centers for Adults, 2007) and a member of the International Festival of Emerging Artists (London, 2008).

She is the Director of Cultural Events and teaches dance and theatre at the Leonteios School in Athens. She has been teaching choreography at the professional dance school Anna Petrova – Maro Marmarinou for the years 2016-2020. She has also taught improvisation and choreography workshops at the Dance Cultural Centre in the context of ARC for Dance Festival, and the dance program for 65+ at the Onassis Cultural Centre (2013-2020).

She has given lectures on choreography in various universities in Greece and abroad.

In 2021, she establishes the 1st Academy of Choreography in Greece, in collaboration with 2023 Elevsis European Capital of Culture, in the frame of the wider artistic vision of Aerites, titled U(R)TOPIAS.

More information: https://www.aerites.com/

The art of dance, in the case of Aerites, is not only about "morphology", type of "movement" or "means of expression". The group focuses on experimenting and producing performances based on theoretical, dramaturgic and movement research. The aim of Aerites Dance Company is to create artistic actions as a result of the synergy between dance, performing arts, poetry, theatrical practice and new technology.

The company has been awarded with the Ermis prize (2008) and with 3 Evge prices (2009, 2007). With the work "d.ΟPΑ! (dopamines of post-Athenians)", Aerites were chosen by the General Administration for New Generations to represent Greece at the 14th Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (City of Skopjie 3th-12th September 2009). "d.OPA!" went on to come in 1st place, judged by a panel of industry professionals inclusive of creative directors from important international festivals, in order to take part in the 8th Platform for Contemporary Dance at the prestigious Megaro Moussikis in Athens, June 2010. Finally, in October 2010, Aerites Dance Company was selected to be in the ten finalist companies for Aerowaves festival in London. Since then they have toured the work in various international festivals.

Source : Arites website

More information : www.aerites.com