🇫🇷 🇬🇷 Soirée Chorégraphique “Marias Callas & Co” (4 Nov 2023 – Paris)

Choreographic evening organized by Graham For Europe with guests from Athens

In partnership with Dance Athens

Saturday November 4 at 7:30pm

Salle Jean Dame, 17 rue Leopold Bellan, 75002 Paris.


Evening Program

Prelude (5 mins)

Choreography (Concept and Interpretation):  Penny Diamantopoulou

Music: Vangelis Papathanassiou

Video art & Prop: Dionysios Tsaftaridis

This solo was inspired during the Covid-19 related lockdown in Athens and was created inside my living room. It is an honest experiment of a physical interpretation of the music, while being limited in a condensed space. The bench is the only space available for physical expression, while the mind and soul travel in an endless universe, reflected though the video projection.

I am GIALLO (15 mins)

Choreography & performance: Ilias Bageorgos

Costume design & creation: Francesco Infante

Music: Stefanos Giakoumakis

Light, sun, shine, start, shout, fun, party, let’s go, GIALLO!

Giallo in italian means yellow, and in this choreography the colour yellow becomes an embodied condition that comes alive through movement, taking the forms of temperament, identity and dance. The world “giallo” also describes a novel and film genre with main traits the elements of horror, crime and eroticism, that plays with the concepts of mystery and wild instincts. Exploring the connection between those untamable elements of human nature and the joyous and prosperous side of all things yellow, the dancer transcends the limits of everyday human identity, opening up to movements and reaction guided by all the GIALLO feelings.

The performance is transformative procedure beyond everyday reality, that aims to take us from the grey and shaded world and lead us to the groovy, shiny, bold and unapologetically yellow reality of GIALLO.

INTERMISSION (10 mins)

Marias Callas (30 mins)

Artistic direction/choreographic composition: Ilias Bageorgos

Creation and teaching of movement material: Penny Diamantopoulou, Rafael Molina

Dancers DAY (Dance Athens Youth company): Paraskevi Kitrinou, Kanaki Chrysoula-Nefeli, Chrysovergis Ioannis, Sofia Gkiouli, Aikaterini Kioumi, Sofia Panousi, Maria Vei, Christiana Freideriki Kastanidi, Stefania Skandalou, Evangelia Aleiftira, Markoulidaki Aikaterini, Alexia Tzamourani, Rachil Rymenidi.

Costumes: Francesco Infante

Curation: Konstantinos Argyriou Evangeloudis

Music spreads all over the stage and, with the rising light, brings forth human figures that appear as holograms. Transfiguring music into movement the dancing bodies are shaped after important moments and roles of a life lived through art.

Balancing between the stage and real life, the body becomes a vessel of constant transformation between temporary identities, revolving around the stable axis of music. The individual loses itself in the role and the crowd only to be reborn onstage, under a new name, a title of honour: Callas.

Honouring the centenary since the birth date of 20th century’s most prominent opera singer, DAY stages the choreography Marias Callas.