Kinitiras, always active and restless, recently started HAT, a new Erasmus+ program about diversity acceptance and ecology. Through workshops, research, and artistic exchanges, two groups of young people from Greece and Ireland will creatively explore the role of ecology in our life. The results of this research and workshops will be presented in autumn, with various site-specific performances in the streets of Athens and Dublin!

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The program

Climate change is a critical issue in the global agenda, as it increasingly affects our habits and changes our way of life. Ecology rises to be a subject that concerns us all in this planet, regardless of standard of living, religion, gender, or any other identity aspect. Theatre and dance, as we have often witnessed in their history, reflect contemporary worries. So, it follows that ecology today is a rising concern of the theory and practice of performing arts.

This new Erasmus+ programme, HAT, is an answer to today’s ecological concerns. The core of the HAT operations and actions aims to encompass diversity in young people, helping them take action in order to define their own world, with their own rules. At the same time, the programme aims to raise public awareness on ecology and climate change.

The programme is addressed at young people aged 18-30, regardless of social background, gender, financial means, origin, and experience on dance and theatre. Experiential workshops, theatre and dance exercises, discussions, research, and site-specific performances, will explore the role of the creative process and performing arts in sensitizing and mobilizing us against the “ecology crisis”.

For HAT, Kinitiras collaborates again with the Irish Crooked House Theatre Company. Kinitiras is an internationally recognized artistic network that connects professionals and amateurs through performing arts. It started in 1995-96 as a dance company called Kinitiras Horotheama. During the last 2.5 years it works in a nomadic fashion, without a permanent base, but this is does not stop Kinitiras from continuing collaborations with entities in Greece and abroad (erasmus+ programmes, residencies, etc.). The Irish youth theatre Crooked House Theatre Company organizes theatre activities specifically for teenagers and young people. It was founded in 1993 and is based in Newbridge, Ireland. The company uses theatre to help young persons find their way in the world, explore their own identity and values, and develop basic social skills.

Actions

The program spans a full year (May 5, 2022 to May 4, 2023). Through HAT, young professionals and amateurs in the fields of dance and theatre, unite to focus on the subject of “performing ecologies”. The program has already started for the Greek and Irish groups, each having 11 members.

The program workshops include courses on the full performing arts spectrum. Meetings on a weekly basis, and also one-time seminars that will take place until autumn, will give the groups in Greece and Ireland the chance to view ecology through the lens of movement, contemporary dance, devised theatre, performance writing, and other important techniques. At the end of August, the Irish group will come to Athens to participate in an intense training course week, together with the Greek group. At the end of that week, a site-specific performance will be presented to the public in Athens, in a mutually-agreed location.

In HAT, mentors, artists, and educators come from different fields of performing arts, who either are permanent members of the Kinitiras network or unite for the first time for the HAT program: Afroditi Vervenioti (Contemporary Dance – Hip Hop), Antigone Gyra (Improvisation – Choreographic Composition), Dora Zoumpa (Site-Specific Performance), Georgina Kakoudaki (Theoretical Practices, Stage Composition), Aria Boumpaki (Site-Specific Performance), Christos Polymenakos (Body/Word Performance Writing), Lia Hamilothori (Contemporary Dance – Improvisation), Peter Hussey (Devised Theatre and Feedback techniques), Silvia Pezzarossi (Site-Specific Performance).

HAT will close with an extended process of evaluating the programme through Internet meetings of the two groups, that will last the period November 2022 – April 2023, whose results will be presented in the official HAT channels. Through a diffusion of process and results, the programme aims to be a source of inspiration for similar artistic and educational actions of community awakening regarding the critical issues of climate change and ecology.

HERE AND THERE (HAT), performing ecologies
A new erasmus+ youth program

Artistic coordination: Antigone Gyra, Dimitris Agoras
Duration: 5 May 2022 – 4 May 2023
Participants: Kinitiras (Greece), Crooked House (Ireland)