Lenio Kaklea
Lenio Kaklea is a dancer, choreographer, director and writer born in Athens, Greece and based in Paris.
She studies at the National Conservatory of Contemporary Dance in Athens (SSCD), where she is formed in classical ballet and American modern techniques and repertories such as Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and Jose Limon. In 2005, she is awarded the Pratsika Foundation Prize and moves to France, where she studies at the CNDC in Angers and starts to collaborate with prominent figures of the European dance scene such as Boris Charmatz, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Claudia Triozzi, François Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea. In 2011 she completes the SPEAP program, an experimentation in arts and politics’ master directed by Bruno Latour at Sciences Po in Paris.
Since 2009, Lenio Kaklea uses a wide range of media including choreography, text and video. Her artistic practice is influenced by feminism, and post colonial critique. In her work, she explores the production of subjectivity through the organized transmission of movements and reveals the intimate spaces in which we construct our identity.
An important strand of her work is the project Practical Encyclopaedia. Since 2016, travelling through the streets and pathways of different peripheral European territories, she gathers nearly 600 unique stories that testify to the familiarity and diversity of habits, of rituals and of trades that compose and distinguish these terrains. Different artistic forms see the light within this project (a solo dance piece, a quartet stage work, two publications and two video installations).
Her work has been presented by different institutions and festivals throughout Europe such as the Centre Pompidou, Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection, ImPulsTanz Festival, CN D Pantin, Lafayette Anticipations, Onassis Foundation, Athens Festival, Milan’s Triennale, Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, documenta 14-Public programs, NEXT Festival and Les presses du réel. Her performances have joined collections such as the CNAP-National Center of Fine Arts and KADIST Foundation.
Along with her personal choreographic work, she is engaged in collaborations with other artists. In 2013, she pursues a solo collaboration with the American choreographer Lucinda Childs on the music of Ryoji Ikeda. Few years later, in 2016, she is invited as curator at the National Scene of Brest and presents Iris, Alexandra, Mariela, Katerina et moi, a program around female choreographers working in Athens. Soon after, in 2017, she accompanies the creation of Suite No 3, a stage concert by Joris Lacoste and Pierre-Yves Macé.
In 2019, she is awarded the Dance Prize of the Hermès Italia Foundation and the Triennial of Milan. In 2021, she creates Age of Crime, a piece for nine dancers, in the frame of the bicentenary of the Greek Revolution at the Athens Festival. The same year, she choreographs the emblematic work for prepared piano by John Cage, Sonatas and Interludes, accompanied on stage by pianist Orlando Bass. In 2022, she collaborated with the Italian fashion house Bottega Veneta and created a performance at Punta Della Dogana in Venice with clothes designed by Matthieu Blazy.
She teaches choreography at dance festivals and national schools across Europe, such as ImPulsTanz Festival, CAMPING CN D Pantin, the University of Arts and Design of Karlsruhe, The School of Fine Arts in Paris, the master program Exerce in Montpellier, the Regional Conservatory of Dijon, and the Schools of Fine Arts in Angers and Bordeaux.
