Kinitiras at Israel
Photo: Stefanos Kosmidis
“ehS came from another planet”: Amalia Bennett, Antigone Gyra
“Bent”: Antigone Gyra, Anthi Theofilidi, Artemis Lampiri
“Thalia”: Artemis Lampiri, Anthi Theofilidi
7-9/9/2022
Antigone Gyra is presenting for the first time her solo “ehS came from another planet” in the Jerusalem International Solo Dance Festival (JISDF). JISDF is a unique contemporary dance festival held by Angela Dance Co. Jerusalem, presenting solo works by choreographers from Israel and around the world in direct contact with the audience.
“ehS came from another planet”is a solo improvisation performance directed by Amalia Bennett and Antigone Gyra and performed by the latter that falls under the research umbrella of Kinitiras, Femininity in Transition.
- How many times do you feel like a “fish out of its water?”
- How many times to you think that there is no room for your ideas and thoughts?
- How many times do you look at yourself in the mirror wondering where you are in this reflection?
- How many times do you wish to disappear without anyone noticing?
- How many times do you feel like you come from another planet?
This is a solo about otherness. It could be a trailer of a potential cult science fiction movie that talks about strange creatures living within us. These “creatures” are our thoughts, emotions, ideas which sometimes feel that are “coming from another planet” in consideration to what is happening inside and around us.
Amalia and Antigone worked together from distance and in flesh to create this solo improvisation performance investigating different possibilities carried by a body daring to return on stage after two and a half decades of absence. Antigone attempts a series of metamorphosis throughout the solo, while discovering which otherness belongs to her.
The costume and the sound design co exist in equal terms with the moving body exploring a deep dialogue of transformation between them.
Concept- Direction: Amalia Bennett–Antigone Gyra
Performed by Antigone Gyra
Costume: Evdokia Veropoulou
Sound Design: Orestis Tanis
Lighting Design: Anti Steve
Premiere: Jerusalem International Solo Dance Festival
Duration: 10-12 minutes
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While in Jerusalem, Antigone Gyra along with two of her oldest collaborators, Anthi Theofilidi and Artemis Lampiri, will present the pieces they created during the Femininity in Transition residency program. In 2021 Kinitiras Network for Performing Arts started collaborating with Israeli Machol Shalem Dance House with an artistic residency program based on the transitional concept of femininity at the beginning of the new century.
Concluding now the residency, Antigone Gyra is revisiting the two soli Bent I and Bent II, reshaping them as a duet (Bent) based on the idea of maternity.
The ability of womens’ body to bent and stretch during the pregnancy but also the adaptive capacities that she has to develop during her role as a mother are processed during this duet. The movement material has been produced through improvisations under the same ideas by the two dancers and by given material from the choreographer.
The work will be open to discussion in order to develop in a final product during 2023.
Choreography and Costume: Antigone Gyra in collaboration with the performers
Performed by Anthi Theofilidi, Artemis Lampiri
Original Music by Orestis Tanis
Artemis Lampiri will be presenting Thalia, a solo performed by Anthi Theofilidi that premiered in May 2021 in Athens.
Her name is Thalia or Reut or Eleni or Einav, Michele, Kate … She is 90 years old, or maybe 15, maybe 50, maybe one or 30 years old. Once she wanted to become a mother, in another life she became a mother and perhaps she neither wanted nor became a mother. She works hard not to become stuck. Every single day. She works with herself, for herself, and for everyone else. She is a normal woman.
Thalia is a solo for the shell we build to endure and for the memory we inherit. It is a female solo. A solo whose gravity changes as and whenever Thalia decides.
Idea – Choreography: Artemis Lampiri
Interpretation – Co-creation: Anthi Theofilidi
Photos from the “ehS came from another planet” solo: Stefanos Kosmidis
Photos from the Femininity in Transition residency: Pavlos Mavridis