Sites Embodied Cyprus festival was a bicommunal and international festival on Ecology, the Arts and the Environment.
The festival brought together site specific performances created during the Eco Art Incubator workshop and existing dance performances by invited artists. The festival took place in the frame of the Cultural Decentralization Programme of the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Education & Culture in collaboration with the communities of Drousheia and Androlikou villages.
For more images visit our Flickr site
Article about the workshop Eco Art Incubator Cyprus: Sites Embodied that took place in the Akamas Peninsula in Cyprus from 14 to 19 April 2017. It preceded the EDN Atelier Akamas: Nature Embodied, that was celebrated from 20 to 23 April. The Atelier had the form of a sharing and discussion of the previous workshop findings with EDN and local communities invited guests. This happened primarily at the site of exploration and experimentation.
By Denise Kenney and Nancy Holmes
Artists and professors at the University of British Columbia Okanagan Canada, and facilitators of the workshop
May 2017
ATELIER AKAMAS: NATURE EMBODIED 2 · BY ALFREDO ZINOLA
Reflections on Atelier of Nature Embodied by Alfredo Zinola, performer and choreographer.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
SEVIM’S AKPINAR’S DANCE GROUP (CY)
Performing: ‘SheLL’ on Friday 21 April, 19:00, Droushia village
To έργο She/LL έχει σκοπό να αποκαλύψει τη σωματική και συναισθηματική πάλη τριών γυναικών στην προσπάθειά τους να κατακτήσουν την «τελειότητα». Οι γυναίκες αυτές φέρουν το βάρος της ενσωματωμένης ιστορικότητας, η οποία προκύπτει από τις επιρροές του κοινωνικού καταναγκασμού και δεν επιτρέπει την έκφραση της αδυναμίας. Ο συνεχής αγώνας τους για το άψογο, τον οποίο είναι υποχρεωμένες να κερδίσουν είναι ο τρόπος τους να μη θεωρηθούν «ευάλωτες».
She/LL reveals the physical and emotional struggle of three women who attempt to reach “perfection”. They bear the burden of their incorporated history, which derives from the influences of social coercion, prohibiting any expression of weakness. Their on-going struggle for flawlessness – in which they are requested to admirably succeed – is their only way to avoid being considered as “vulnerable”.
ΧΟΡΟΓΡΑΦIΑ: Sevim Akpinar
ΧΟΡΕΥΤΕΣ: Sevim Akpinar, Liliya Biroğul, Yuliya Meyzin Hermaniuk
ΣΚΗΝΙΚΑ /ΚΟΣΤΟΥΜΙΑ: Toya Akpinar
ΒΙΝΤΕΟ: Israel Pimenta
ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ: Kira Kira, Ran Bagno
CHOREOGRAPHY: Sevim Akpinar
PERFORMERS: Sevim Akpinar, Liliya Biroğul, Yuliya Meyzin Hermaniuk
SET /COSTUMES: Toya Akpinar
VIDEO: Israel Pimenta
MUSIC: Music: Kira Kira, Ran Bagno
ISABEL ANDRES (DE/ES)
Isabel Andrés Portí : Filmmaker and creative writer from Barcelona but living in Berlin. Studied History of Art at the UAB, Film and Television Screenplay at the Writers Workshop Foundation in Barcelona and EICTV San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba and also trained in Film Direction at Raindance Training and in Film History and Theory at the British Film Institute in London. Wide experience in different roles in all kinds of filmmaking. Last years focused on visual research, film directing and writing. Main interests are documentaries and multimedia art projects. http: //www.isabelandresporti.com//
NINA OSSAVY (NO)
Performing: “BIOS”, Friday 21 April, 19:00, Droushia Village Hall
The bees and other pollinators are dying
all over the world.
BIOS is a visual performance meditation
around honey bees
and our relationshiop to them.
BIOS is about life.
About transformation.
BIOS is about listening to the sound of leaves in the wind
and what the bees are trying to tell us.
BIOS is an attempt to relate to a crisis so big
that its almost impossible to understand.
Actor/text: Nina Ossavy.
Technician: Marius Kolbenstvedt
Music. There are no more four seasons/Marius Kolbenstvedt
Video: Boya Bøckmann/THomas Hildebran/Marius Kolbenstvedt
Supported by: Det Norske Komponistfond, Norsk Kulturfond, Fond for Lyd og Bilde, FFUK, Fritt Ord og Norsk Musikkfond. Co-produksjon: Black Box Teater.
NEFELI TSIOUTI (CY)
Nefeli graduated with a BA in French Language & Literature (University of Athens), an MA in Choreography (Middlesex University) and an MSc in Dance Science (Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance), supported by 3 scholarships from Trinity Laban. Currently she is in the Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship Advisory Committee for Dance in Europe, she works as Associate Researcher Cyprus Musculoskeletal & Sports Trauma Research Centre, she is the Founder & Director of Project Breakalign, a prevention of injuries project. Moreover, she serves on the Board of Directors of Healthy Dancer Canada (HDC) and the United Breakin’ Association (UBA), organising the implementation of Breaking in the Youth Olympics 2018 in Argentina, for the first time in history. She is also a freelance Choreographer, Dancer, and a Sports Massage Therapist. Recently she has been added as a co-opted member of the Education Committee of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science Education Committee.
Nefeli has been dancing for 22 years, having as her main dance training classical ballet in Cyprus and Greece. She was a Lecturer in Dance in Universities across London from 2011-2015. She is also the Artistic Director of Scope Dance Theatre since 2010, making hip-hop dance theatre. In the middle of her journey as a professional dancer and maker, Nefeli got a serious operation due to injury which stopped her from continuing her journey smoothly. Nefeli has devoted her work to the mission of reducing the risk of injuries and promoting a healthier dancer for longer, with Project Breakalign’s research, lectures, workshops and her active participation in international breaking competitions since her return to performing in 2011.
Nefeli was awarded the following awards for her dance medicine and science research: Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund (NY, USA), Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship (Italy), Gill Clarke Resource Fund, ‘Centre National de la Danse’ research funding (France) to develop the ‘Breakalign Method’, ‘Dance UK’s Dancers’ Mentoring Programme’, finalist for the ‘Change Maker Award’ by London Inspires Awards.
International speaking engagements between 2012-2017 include Interweaving Cultures (University of Malta), Centre National de la Danse (France), Brazil-UK Network in Dance Medicine & Science (Brazil), Performing Arts Medicine Association’s Annual Conference (L.A.), Healthy Dancer Canada Annual Conference, International Association for Dance Medicine & Science Annual Conference 2016 (Hong Kong), Serendipity’s Blurring Boundaries: Urban street meets contemporary dance (UK), PoP Moves Emerging Scholars Symposium 2012 (UK), Conference of Contemporary Music & Dance (UK) and more.
Nefeli’s professional performance and/or choreographic credits include London Olympics Opening Ceremony 2012, RIOT Offspring/Sadler’s Wells, Open Art Surgery/Breakin’ Convention, Dance Umbrella/Barbican, B.Supreme UK Tour, Faraday’s Cage film/Company Bricolage, Barcelona International Dance Exchange, The Place, ELLE-Adidas MyGirl Global campaign, Folk Dance Remixed UK Tour, Opera in Revolution and more.
Publications:
► Tsiouti, N., Constantinou, T., Philip K., Sanchez, E. & Paton, B. (2016). Evaluating the relationship between fatigue, pressure and weight distribution on the upper limb in breakers. Revista Movimenta. 9(4): 659-664.
http://www.revista.ueg.br/index.php/movimenta/article/view/5622/3840
► Brookes, P. (ed). Abraham, K., Adewole, F., Blackstock, I., Green, J., Hylton, R., Read, J., Tsiouti, N., Uzor, T-M. & Walde, D. (2016). Blurring Boundaries: Urban street meets contemporary dance. Serendipity, Leicester. ISBN: 978-0-9926319-2-5
► Edrich, C. (ed). Tsiouti, N. (2014). Dance Today. Dancing Times. 58 (149), p.44-46.
MILENA URGEN KOULAS & GIORGOS KOULAS (CY)
Performing: “Happiness” Saturday 22 April, 21:00, Open Air Thetre Droushia
According to Aristotle: Happiness is the ultimate end and purpose of human existence.
Happiness is not pleasure, nor is it virtue. It is the exercise of virtue.
Happiness cannot be achieved until the end of one’s life. Hence it is a goal and not a temporary state.
Choreographer/dancer: Milena Ugren Koulas
Music: George Koulas
Costumes: Ase Lazarou
YIANNIS AVRAAMIDES (CY)
Born creative, happiness grower, travelling (eternal) musician.
Finished studies in 2015 from Kingston University of London with an MA in “Music and the Creative Economy” and a BA in Business Administration. Following my studies I spent 10 months in Asia (Thailand, Cambodia and Japan). Returning to Cyprus i engaged myself into music activities as lead singer and rhythm guitarist in a blues/rock band playing in various cities in Cyprus.
The strong connection i have had to music since i was born has always followed me, very much so during my travels as well. Music for me during that time was the language of communication when normal language was of no use. It allowed me to connect with people with one of the most beautiful forms of expressing pure emotion. Experiencing music mainly came by collaborating with local and international artists, album recordings, playing live shows at local venues, festivals, living rooms and even in temples. Being exposed to many original and different genre oriented musicians, through both listening and playing, made me feel the vitality of expressing who I am through my music. It is a liberating feeling.
My relationship with Nature was not always as strong as it is today. It was out need to change myself where I began adopting a more healthy and natural oriented lifestyle. To me it was the only logical option. Accepting Nature as a teacher gave me the opportunity to work closely with her and learn a lot about myself through Nature. I began experiencing a sense of self which was completely new. I experienced working with farms, growers and creative collectives, seeing first hand how certain people still live in sync with the cycle of Nature; whether they live in a jungle farm or in a completely westernised metropolitan city. These experiences have shifted my view towards a certain eco-conscious perspective which evidently becomes a way of life. An ethical code of respect which life, Nature and each and every one of us deserves.
ZOE BALASCH (DE/ES)
Zoe Balasch, born in Barcelona and living in Berlin.
Performer, researcher and teacher. Her professional career combines performing arts with interdisciplinary research linking cultural syncretism, daily life and ephemeral. Since 2004 she has been involved in many projects working as a choreographer, dancer and sound editor and she also has worked as a collaborative artist in diferent art collectives: Fudo, Parinama Project, Gora, Inuter, Acciö Directa, 123 Picaparet within others. She has been involved in community art projects mostly working at CeRRCa, Center for Research Casamarles. https://www.cercca.com//
As a researcher she developes cross-cultural studies on body perception and the environment complemented with texts from contemporary Western and Eastern studies. Concern ing her research about body, architecture and place, she has traveled to Ireland, France, Malta, India, Check Republic, Bask Country, Guatemala and lived in Menorca Island . Lately her artistic practices and research had been linked up through landscape (cultural, urban, emotional, rural..etc) and she continues working in this direction.
Since 2011 she works in Transitory Landscapes Laboratory a site -specific project based on the connection between art and geography for creating new discourses and artistic experiences in contemporary landscapes. Until now dancers, musicians, visual artists, architects and geographers had collaborated developing walks, drifts, videos, workshops and site-specific performances. The project is currently underway with the aim of applying this methodology to different countries, climates and social contexts.Degree in Social Psychology from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where she also studied dance therapy.In paralel she studied dance for over ten years mostly influenced by BodyWeather at independent dance centers in Catalonia, Spain, Denmark, France and India with choreographers like Andrés Corchero, Hisako Horikawa, Anita Saj, Rhizome Lee and Fran Van de Ven, whithin others. She received 4 years degree in Hatha Yoga ( accreditation from Catalan government and European Union). Later on she complemented hatha yoga studies with naad yoga (yoga of the sound) with Surinder Singh and Quim Altes and Non- dual Yoga(Tantric Shivaism from Kashmir) with Eric Baret. She has complemented 2 years of Sanskrit language studies from Universitat de Barcelona. Since 2006 she teaches workshops and courses mostly about yoga, naad yoga and dance at centers, associations and organizations from the field of art, health and sport in Catalonia, Menorca Island and Germany.
Ecologist and activist from many years she collaborates in diferent projects related to participative democracy, organic producers and consumers networks, cooperativism and sustainability,exchange networks and social currency projects, within others. She considers eating as a political action. http://www.zoebalasch.com//
HARRY KOUSHOS & ALEXANDRA WAIERSTALL (CY)
Performing:” Sounding Silence”, Friday 21 April, 19:00, Droushia Open Air Theatre, and Saturday 22 April, 16:00, Androlikou village
SOUNDING SILENCE by ALEXANDRA WAIERSTALL
The world is teeming: anything can happen.” (John Cage)
Anatomically an open organ, my ear, acts as my connector to my environment. I hear the silence and move on the edge of structure and chance. No story will be told. My moving, the piece itself. Sensing the stimuli of my surroundings, I acknowledge the moment and its becoming nature.
The solo “Sounding Silence” created for and with Harry Koushos is part of the series “A human study – a choreographical journal”. The series is pursued since 2006 in different formats / constellations and explores time-spatial configurations in relation to interpersonal unfoldings.
Concept / Choreography: Alexandra Waierstall
Performer: Harry Koushos
Sound: Marios Takoushis
ALEXANDRA WAIERSTALL
Choreographer / Dance Artist
http://www.alexandrawaierstall.com
http://theartspace-formovingideas.blogspot.de
BERNADETTE DIVILLY (IR)
Performing: Saturday 22 April, 14:00, Androlikou school
Email: bernidivilly@gmail.com Website: bernadettedivilly.com
PROFILE: I am a Choreographer, a Dance Artist and a Psychotherapist with an MA in Somatic Psychology & Dance Movement Therapy. I am a professional member of Dance Ireland and also involved in Ómós Áite: Space/Place Research Network, based at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway.
My specialisations include: Socially Engaged Choreography, Dance Movement Therapy, Somatic Psychology, Humanistic Integrative Psychotherapy, Contemplative Dance and Urban Design
Key areas of engagement: Walking as understanding and assessing the psyche at any stage of our human development through study of human gait.
Creating Contemplative Dance experiements to support the eco friendly development of rural and urban landscapes and alternative methods of mapping and making place.
Developing public performances to reverse the impact of public shaming and to heal wounded places through embodied practices –while engaging kindness, artistic excellence and new audience participation.
Recent projects include Ciúnas – a year long project that included contemplative dance workshops, performances and a specially commissioned video exploring place, presence and power in NUI Galway. Ongoing work includes DROP – dance, recognition, ownership and presence applied to developing new choreographic practices connected to place, relationship and environment. I have been collaborating with other artists on rural and urban development for Galway 2o20. My focus is on the body, memory and movement as in the Sugán Ballygar 2020 project. Most of my projects engage the art of walking and dance dates to work with urban and rural environments, such as the successful Walking Wisdom Woodquay project which continues to be researched by a new body of students of various disciplines including architect, Irish Studies and geography.
http://www.danceireland.ie/events/dance-ireland-residency-bernadette-divilly
https://bernadettedivilly.com/walking-wisdom/
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GEOPOETICS GROUP (GR)
Performing: Saturday 22 April, 16:00, Androlikou school
Performance Group Geopoetics was founded in 2012 by the theatre performer and researcher Anna Tzakou for the purposes of her doctoral research on a body-landscape performance practice. Its members derive from different disciplines such as theatre, dance, performance art, poetry, architecture and anthropology. The group devises and performs site-specific and walking performances with the aim to experientially examine communal myths of presence via the somatic experience of site, place and landscape. Geopoetics group has created rural performances in Aigina (The Bridge Project, 2012), Nisyros (Geopoetics, 2013) and in the landscapes of Czech Republic, England and France (2014-2015). It has devised site-specific walking performances in Athens (Anaparastasi, 2016) for the Platform for Young Artists: ‘Theme Civil War’, the Experimental Stage [-1] of the National Greek Theater and Athens Biennale 2015-2016 OMONOIA and for the exhibition OUT [TOPIAS]: performance and outdoor/ public space (performance Topophilia, 2016) for Benaki Museum.
Anna Tzakou is a theatre deviser, performer, and practitioner from Athens, Greece. Her performance training is organized by methods of somatic movement, psychophysical actor training, dance improvisation and meditation practices. Anna is interested in devising scores of physicality which investigate place as a performance site and test the performance act as a social and political event. She has participated and worked in site-specific performances, ensemble projects and festivals (Greek Festival, Onassis Cultural Center, Ancient Drama Festival of Athens, and Athens Biennale 3). Awarded by the Fulbright and Onassis Foundation scholarships, Anna has been elaborating a Buddhist inspired body-landscape performance practice as part of her PhD at the Drama Department in the University of Exeter. http://eprofile.exeter.ac.uk/annatzakou/
Marios Chatziprokopiou is a poet, performer, performance theorist, and dramaturg. He studied History and Theatre in Thessaloniki (Greece) and Visual Arts in Paris. He hold an MA in the Anthropology of Performance (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) and he is a tutor and PhD candidate in Performance Studies (Aberystwyth University, U.K.). His studies and research have been funded by the following institutions: Greek State Scholarships Foundation, Michelis Foundation, French Ministry of Education, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil, and Aberystwyth University. His poems have been published in the main Greek literature reviews, and in the edited volumes: Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis (Penned inthe margins 2015), NICE! Is Return Possible? (Salon de Vortex 2016) and Fonés (Nissos 2016). His performances have been presented in international conferences and festivals. Indicative recent participations: Onassis Festival NYU,Athens Biennale, Brunel University of London (2016), Dimitria Festival,Birkbeck University of London (2015). During the last four years, Marios collaborates with Anna Tzakou in different projects: Bridge (2012), Geopoetics,Topophilia (2013), Xenites (2014), Anaparastasis (2016).
Antonis Antoniou is a visual artist and performer. He graduated from the Fine Arts School of Athens in 2014, under professor Marios Spiliopoulos. In 2012 he attended drawing, painting, sculpture and photography at Barcelona University (UDB), funded by an Erasmus scholarship. Expressed through various media (performances, video, video installations etc.), his work explores the relationship between body, space, and/or sociopolitical context. Antonis has shown his work in festivals, exhibitions and artistic residencies in Greece and abroad. Recent participations: Art Athina, Petit Paris d’ Athènes, Art and Madness (Insitution Melina Mercouri), Cipaf festival Cyprus, electric Night Vol.3, in collaboration with Palais de paris / BETON7 / Contemporary Art Showcase (Athens-Tokyo), Transmission Arts Festival, Athens Biennale.
LARA HAWORTH (UK)
Lara Haworth is an artist, writer and researcher.
As an artist, she makes participatory installations that ask audiences to re-imagine or reinterpret their lived environments. Her work focuses on public spaces that facilitate an interaction or exchange between people and site. The Library Project (2012) builds a local library where all the books are made, bound and authored by its local community. Citizens Exchange Bureau (2013) performs a one-on-one, reciprocal Citizens Advice Bureau. New National Parks (2013) builds a national park at a site of degradation, neglect or ugliness. Mobile Border Unit (2015) enacts a roaming, site-specific border control. Her fictive environments have a hold on the real, but through employing elements of play, agency and surprise, introduce a dynamic of uncertainty that casts a new light on the sites, spaces and structures with which she works.
Her newest work, Talk to Someone You Don’t Know About Something You Don’t Know, premiered at the Atrium Gallery at the London School of Economics in April 2016. The project, made in collaboration with LSE’s Gender Institute, invites visitors to have a telephone conversation with someone they don’t know, about a subject they don’t know about. The piece explores the limits of knowledge, and the liminality of waiting rooms and phone booths. All of her projects have a fascination with everyday, civic and bureaucratic rituals, and with the secrets, failures and joys of public places, institutions and ideas.
She has had poetry and articles published in magazines such as Visual Verse, Biography and LAKE and in the new book by Routledge, Theorizing Visual Studies. Most recently, 34 Ways to Coca-Cola, a set of 34 walking guides that map, using Google Street View and text, a route to a Coke in each of the 34 Bristols around the world, was published in ACME.
As a researcher she continues to work on a project in collaboration with Dr Ilya Parkins, supported by SSHRC, LSE and the Gender Institute, A Cultural History of Feminine Unknowability.
She is currently preparing the UK version of New National Parks to premiere in Coventry as part of their ‘UK City of Culture’ bid, following a year-long R&D period in the city. Talk to Someone You Don’t Know About Something You Don’t Know will travel to Toronto in May 2017.
Her work has shown nationally and internationally at places including Koganecho Bazaar, Yokohama, Japan; Barbican Centre, London, UK; National Theatre, London, UK; Library of Birmingham, UK; Begehungen No 10, Chemnitz, Germany; Buzzcut, Glasgow, UK and Festival Belluard Bollwerk, Fribourg, Switzerland.
IDA JOHANNESEN (NO)
From Norway, with background from physical (street) theater and contemporary dance. My main interest so far has been in the field of improvisation, and to the quest of bringing myself closer to a truly honest place as an artist. Recently Ive been playing around with women from fairytales, linking their stories to pieces of my own story, exploring how my struggles as a woman echo collective tales about the feminine.
NATALIE TSINGIS (CY)
Natalie Tsingis was born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1989. She studied Ballet and Contemporary Dance at “State School of Dance” and at “Niki’s Kontaxaki – Nikoletta’s Bakali” , in Athens, Greece, from where she graduated in June 2010. She participated in lots of seminars by worldwide dancers. She worked with various choreographers in Greece and Cyprus such as, Yolanta Zaharieva (Cinderella, The Waking of Flora), Jozef Csaba Hajer (Hungarian Sketches), Athanasia Kanellopoulou (The Revenge of Zizel), Harry Koushos (Bridal Ceremony), Mayia Kikkidou (Storm), Arrtitude Dance Company (For Sale), Elli Kostantinou (E..os VC T..os). She studied Pilates (450hr Mat and Equipment) and Hatha Yoga (200RYS) in “Studio One School of Fitness & Aerobics” in Athens. She followed further studies specializing in Antigravity Aerial Yoga (Fundamentals Diploma Levels 1, 2) at “A2Z Studio” in Athens and in Aerial Yoga (Diploma Level 1) at “Anahata Yoga Studio” in Thessaloniki.
ART GROUP PICK NICK (CY)
Film: ” Wild Greens”, Saturday 22 April, 21:00
Wild Greens by pick nick in The UAW Book About Urban Awareness, ed. Socrates Stratis, DAMDI Academic series 5, Seoul, 2013 Wild Greens started as a one-‐time event/activity in the city of Nicosia. Going for a casual 40-‐minute walk through a selected path of a gentrified part of Nicosia, and guided by a professional horticulturist/botanist, Charalambos Christodoulou, who addresses the planted flowers and plants, as well as those greens that are normally sidelined as they aren’t considered part of the landscape’s “planning”, the aim of this project is to pause and pay attention to details of the city which are typically disregarded. A degree of serendipity is part of this tour’s theme so ‘stumbling’ upon nature, rather than following the order of a park’s path, liberates other experiences, otherwise neglected. Emphasis is placed on the social and cultural aspects of the life and history of plants/trees/flowers, etc, and on how the inhabitants in this tour respond to them, or not. Interested in this kind of zooming into details while walking in the street, or, as a matter of fact, while driving, the idea was about reclaiming the street by presenting types of existing lives, which actively but silently take part in the natural, social and cultural history of the city. The tour walked amidst these different kinds of urban layers, encourages inhabitants to engage with the botanist in different ways. In retrospect, Wild Greens triggered a process-‐driven experience. People were given significant freedom – to spend time, to situate themselves environmentally, to achieve a trajectory. Acts of negotiation happened in real time and the path of the walk was finally determined by the discontinuity produced by the multiple bodies operating as a team; a collaborative improvisation that moved itself through the city landscape. What started as a presentation (on behalf of the “guide”) was quickly transformed to open conversations, which established a non-‐hierarchy of thoughts, movements and sensations, becoming a series of indications for a diverse spatial experience. about their history, can lead to other forms of becoming aware on the street, as for example, being inclusive