Onassis Stegi’s Productions Are Traveling: September – October 2024

On September 1, Christiana Kosiari traveled with her project “RUNWAY” to the Scena Natura 2024 festival in Bologna, Italy. Organized by the Crexida Cultural Association, this year’s festival edition managed to connect and give prominence to different artistic genres, in conversation with the surrounding area – the verdant Fienile Fluò. This is where Christiana Kosiari, a choreographer and dancer we met at ODD – Onassis Dance Days 2024 last February, stepped once more on a treadmill that never stops, indulging in another speed race against the corrosion of time.

“To be possessed,” the well-traveled work by choreographer and dancer Chara Kotsali, adds five new stations to the artistic map of Onasis Stegi’s “Outward Turn” program. On September 7, the performance travels to Trois C-L | Maison pour la danse – a reference point for Luxembourg’s contemporary choreographic creation – which organizes and supports artistic and educational activities since 1994, both at a domestic and international level. From there, it will travel with her choreography to OuDance Festival in Oulu, Finland, on September 11, and subsequently to the International Contemporary Dance Festival Tanz Platz in Novi Sad, Serbia, on September 18.

Her next – and definitely not last – stations are Paris, France, and Rome, Italy. From September 24 to 26, the performance “to be possessed” will travel to La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne, to give three shows to one of the twelve National Centers for Choreographic Development (CDCN – Centre de Développement Chorégraphique National) in France – institutions of particular importance for the choreographers and dancers’ community. On October 17 and 18, Chara Kotsali will travel alongside Ioanna Paraskevopoulou to Roma Europa Festival, one of the neighboring country's longest-running and most influential festivals. This is where the two Greek choreographers will present their works “to be possessed” and “MOS” respectively.

What do we have in place of young ladies and gentlemen today? And what might a contemporary such guide include? In the performance “A User’s Manual,” Konstantinos Papanikolaou draws material from etiquette guides and gentlemen’s books dating to the 19th century, texts by Georges Perec and James Baldwin, film and advertising, and his personal memories and mythologies. The outcome is a contemporary user’s manual that guides us through how to live our lives in the present day. The work we first encountered in March 2022 at the Upper Stage of the Onassis Stegi, lands in Strasburg’s Pole-Sud on September 12 and 13, launching the institute’s artistic season and inviting us to reflect on issues relating to love, masculinity, social status, and proper behavior in every instance; which is to say, quintessentially everything that a real 21st-century gentleman needs to know.

Having already presented two choreographic works at the Onassis Stegi as part of the Onassis Dance Days Festival in 2023 and 2024, choreographer Xenia Koghilaki takes an outward turn with her latest project, entitled “Slamming.” In organic continuity with “Bang Bang Bodies,” a piece centered around headbanging, “Slamming” draws its inspiration from the choreographic stance of the audience in a music concert, and brings on stage the choreographer herself and two other dancer-performers. On September 27, the work will be presented at the La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne in Paris, France, and from there it will travel to Oktoberdans Festival in Bergen, Norway, on October 19 and 20.

A work on the borders of performance, dance, and visual arts. “Lapis Lazuli,” a performance we got to meet at the Main Stage of the Onassis Stegi last April, continues its successful tour around European theaters. From October 1 to 3, Euripides Laskaridis and the OSMOSIS team land in the Théâtre de la Cité International in Paris, France, for three evenings full of laughter and terror. Three weeks later, “Lapis Lazuli” will travel to Italy, with Torino’s Torinodanza Festival from October 22 to 23, and Festival Aperto – Fondazione I Teatri di Reggio Emilia on October 27 as its next stops.

On October 28, Panos Malactos will present his latest choreographic work “We All Need Therapy,” a performance we first met at the Onassis Dance Days in April 2024, at Queerwave, a festival organized for the fifth year in a row in Nicosia, Cyprus.

The tours of Onassis Stegi’s productions are realized with the support of the “Outward Turn” program.