“Coconut Effect” – a ten-minute version of Ioanna Paraskevopoulou’s “MOS” – wins the Youth Jury Prize at Danse Élargie 2022
From ONC9 to Danse Élargie in Paris: Ioanna Paraskevopoulou and her creative team presented a ten-minute version of “MOS” – titled “Coconut Effect” – at the 2022 edition of the two-day Danse Élargie competition to unanimously win the Youth Jury Prize.
Photo: Pinelopi Gerasimou
MOS: Ioanna Paraskevopoulou
A rope spun in circles, wooden canes whipped through the air, and the beat of the dancers’ own hearts. These are just some of the non-realistic sound effects used to sonically bring moving images to life in “Coconut Effect”, a short version of Ioanna Paraksevopoulou’s “MOS” that won the Youth Jury Prize at the Danse Élargie competition, hosted on June 25 and 26 by Théâtre de la Ville.
The finalists – selected out of some 400 hundred submissions made by young choreographers – presented works lasting a maximum of ten minutes, and with minimal technical requirements, on the Espace Cardin stage in Paris. The 18 shortlisted works were presented on Saturday, June 25 by nine dance groups from France and nine from other countries – namely: New Zealand, Burundi, Japan, Palestine, Lithuania, Mali, Belgium/Australia, India, and Greece. The competition juries narrowed these down to twelve works that were presented once more on Sunday, June 26. The four winners were then announced at the award ceremony on Sunday night, in the presence of Théâtre de la Ville director Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, and representatives from the competition’s various French partner institutions.
“Coconut Effect” received an award from the Danse Élargie Youth Jury, which this year comprised 13 dance students from the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris. Joining Ioanna Paraskevopoulou at the competition were Georgios Kotsifakis and Danis Chatzivasilakis (performers), and Eliza Alexandropoulou (lighting designer).
Ioanna Paraksevopoulou along with her team took part in the competition with the support of the Onassis Stegi's "Outward Turn" Cultural Export Program
“MOS” is a scenic game operating in among the conspicuous and hidden relations that exist between movement, sound, and image, bringing visibility to elements that cannot easily be seen, or heard.
Photo: Pinelopi Gerasimou
MOS | Ioanna Paraskevopoulou
Α physical soundtrack to a series of scenes – think: nature, chases, zombie horror – from films and other visuals. "Mos" is inspired by the Foley film sound technique, which is used to create sounds in a sound studio that cannot be captured on the live film set: footsteps (walking through a box of gravel), rustling of clothes (flapping a roll of plastic foil), sounds of wood or iron and water (splashing in a baby's bathtub).
The sound technique was wittily depicted in the film “Monty Python and The Holy Grail” from 1975. In this film, the Monthy Python members play grail knights who knock two halves of a coconut together to suggest the sound of a horse – cataclop, cataclop – the horse in question is nowhere to be seen. The technique is also called the coconut effect.
"MOS" continues its summer tour with the next stop the dance festival "Julidans" in Amsterdam, on July 4 and 5, 2022.
