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.
Nadja Argyropoulou
“My city finds me on the other side.”
I learned to read the cement, I played with my friend’s garbage and I framed my dance with railings.
There, where the road is filled with colors. There where our ‘goodmornings’ were recycled.
And I only consume a meter’s space ahead, as well as my breath. Together with contemporary prohibitions and partial traffic tickets.
I followed the trail of cigarette butts and I await the change.
“The city gave wise analogies to its corruption. It dressed up as the capital.”*
And it left me belonging to its gray zone. Now, with dance it will celebrate the shift of its image.
“My city finds me there.”
“Because finally the city finds me next to it.”
In a human chain I will exchange my needs. I will run straight, despite your garbage and I will stand tall so you can see that contemporary statues can only be sculpted by our movement.
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
Design of Promotional Material: Kallina Kyratsouli
Promotion and Communication: Frosso Troussa
Production manager: Van dog
Production: Onassis Cultural Center (www.sgt.gr)
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
We would like to sincerely thank the following people for their support and help: Ann Cooper Albright, Mariza Vinieratou, Pinelopi Iliaskou and Dimitris Halazonitis.
“With three big scale works and a number of smaller projects, Aerites, is among the most emerging and budding dance companies of the younger generation. With a clear direction in dance that combines pure kinetic dance language and dance theatre’s expressiveness, it proposes a blend of dramaturgy that makes you want to get up and dance but at the same time stay and cry.”
“Era poVera is a performance that desires – and manages – to capture the rhythm that drives not only 21st century Athens but all the cities to their future.The result of this alignment gives dance another dimension: more contemporary, more ‘hip’, more attractive.”
“I’ve been to the most magnificent demonstration in Athens. Aerites dance company choreographed the chaos of the capital in the best possible way through the work Era poVera. The talented dancers danced to the rhythm of the city showing everything that is happening right now in Athens, which also reflects the entire of Greece; its manner was more realistic than any fear-inducing TV reportage.”