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Welcome to OuDance Festival 11. -15.9.2024!
Valvesali
11.9. Wednesday
19:00
Audience discussion
On a joint evening with A Solo in the Spotlights. The total duration of the evening is about 2 hours. Includes intermission.
Dried hay is handled on stage during the performance. We ask all those who might be allergic to please prepare with allergy medication and/or a face mask, if you feel like you need one.
The work to be possessed is a solo physical and sound performance that showcases material and aural aspects of a heteronomous DIY archive of “possessed” women drawn from a variety of cultural contexts. A dancer and choreographer who has also been trained in theater studies, anthropology, and music, Chara Kotsali is seeking to investigate the phenomenon of spirit possession via a broadened understanding of the term.
By means of a disarticulated staged ritual, she engages in a trial possession, attempting to bring each of the documentary instances she encounters to life, and calling upon them to reveal their shattering and subversive nature.
Because, as she herself notes: “The possessed body; riddled with holes and manifold, rude and counterproductive, it cedes in an emancipatory and, oftentimes, healing mania. Ever since I was a teenager, I had an obsession with horror movies and especially whatever involved haunted places and demonisms. The idea of a girl or woman talking with many voices, speaking in tongues, spitting her exorcist and contorting her body in extreme ways, instilled in me a sense of fear and gratification. Years have passed and my obsessions have settled in other fields, but the sense that all is “haunted” and all people are “demonized” has morphed into a certainty. Bodies that overflow, that know languages they were never taught, bodies that step into a danger zone and at the same time become menacing. Bodies terminally outside the self, like forms of experience that defy sufficiency and autonomy of the individual. The genealogy of possessed bodies tells us on the impossibility of perfect solitude and reveals that discourse and writing, deed and conscience, the immaterial and material world are haunted by voices that preceded and voices yet to be born.”
Concept, choreography, performance: Chara Kotsali | Dramaturgy: Dimitra Mitropoulou | Artistic consultant: Periklis Pravitas | Music & sound design: Jeph Vanger | Original music piece: “Furiosa” | Lip sync transcription and harmonization: Dimitra Trypani | Lighting design: Eliza Alexandropoulou | Tour choreographer assistants: Katerina Spyropoulou / Dimitra Mitropoulou | Tour musician: Aliki Leftherioti | Technical tour manager: Stavros Kariotoglou | Tour manager: Christina Liata ONASSIS STEGI | Production & Touring Management: Delta Pi | Commissioned & Produced by: ONASSIS STEGI | TO BE POSSESSED premiered in Athens, at the ONASSIS DANCE DAYS in March 2023| Production of the visit: JoJo – Oulu Dance Centre | Duration: 45 min
25 € / 20 €
From Valve ticket office and Ticketmaster
Chara Kotsali is a dance maker, performer and teacher based in Athens, Greece. She graduated from Rallou Manou Professional School of Dance, where she currently works as a teacher of contemporary dance techniques, along with Marmarinou Professional Dance School. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Theater Studies and a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology, as well as being trained in music. She teaches contemporary dance techniques in professional dance schools, while from 2016 to 2022 she was the coordinator of movement workshops that took place in the Female Prison of Eleonas, Thiva, in the framework of the Greek National Opera’s Educational Programs.
She explores choreography and performance through an expanded approach, attempting to involve methodologies from anthropology, documentary art, music, and other performing languages, while she is particularly concerned with the politics of sound and movement. Her practice includes writing, field recordings, and DIY sound composition. Her work has been presented in venues in Greece and abroad.
In March 2023 she presented her first solo choreographic work “to be possessed” and is currently touring in festivals and venues across Europe. She is the supported choreographer of Οnasis Stegi for 2023-2024 as part of the Grand Luxe Network, developing her new research. In 2021 she realized the research project “The right to unpeacefully assemble” with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the performance research project KISΚΑ.
She has worked as movement director in theater performances at several festivals and venues (Αncient theatre of Epidaurus, National Theatre of Greece, National Greek Opera,et al.). In 2023 she received the Greek Critics Association award for best theatre choreography.
As a performer, she has collaborated with many acclaimed artists, performing both in Greece and abroad. She performed in the duet “A time to mourn” and the solo “Legacy”,both choreographed by Iris Karagian, that were awarded the 1st prize of the Jarmila Jeřábková Award in Prague. She has also been part of Aerowaves network with selected works.
Please remember to follow the general safety and hygiene instructions for events:
– Don’t participate if you are infectious or symptomatic
– Take care of hand hygiene; wash your hands or use hand sanitizer
– Cough into a handkerchief or your sleeve
JoJo members receive various benefits, such as substantial price benefits for performance tickets and courses organized by JoJo.