Chara Kotsali

Chara Kotsali is a dance maker, performer, and teacher based in Greece. She graduated from Rallou Manou Professional School of Dance, where she currently works as a teacher of contemporary dance, along with Marmarinou Professional Dance School, while she has been a guest teacher and choreographer at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD). She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Theater Studies and a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology, and she is trained in music.

She explores choreography and performance through an expanded approach, attempting to involve methodologies from anthropology, documentary art, music, and other performing languages while being 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, and she has been selected as one of the Twenty24 Aerowaves artists.

In March 2023, she presented her first solo choreographic work, “to be possessed,” as part of the Onassis Dance Days, which is currently touring in festivals and venues across Europe. The piece was selected as part of the Aerowaves Twenty24 artists and [8:tension] Young Choreographers’ Series at ImPulsTanz Festival in 2023, where it received an honorary mention from the jury. In July 2024, her second work, “borborygmi,” premiered at the Athens Epidaurus Festival, where it received an audience award and is now on tour. She was the supported Onassis Stegi choreographer for 2023–2024 as part of the Grand Luxe Network and Onassis AiR Fellow Artist for 2024–2025, where she developed the research for the work “IT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE.”

As a performer, she has collaborated, among others, with Christos Papadopoulos, Euripides Laskaridis, Patricia Apergi, Iris Karayan, Sofia Mavragani, Tzeni Argyriou, Argyro Chioti, Simos Kakalas, Sofia Paschou, Dimitra Trypani, Ioanna Angelopoulou, Ermira Goro, Aliki Kazouri, Thomas Moschopoulos, Apostolia Papadamaki, Michalis Konstantatos, Medie Megas, Artemis Lampiri, Margarita Trikka, Vahid Evazzadeh, Angela Brouskou, performing both in Greece and abroad. She was cast in the film “Suntan” by Argyris Papadimitropoulos.

She has worked as a movement director in theater performances by renowned Greek directors, receiving in 2023 the Greek Critics Association award for best theater choreography (“The Rise of Arturo Oui,” directed by Aris Biniaris). Some of the directors she has collaborated with are George Koutlis, Aris Biniaris, Io Voulgaraki, Argyris Xafis, Thanos Papakonstantinou, Akyllas Karazisis, Ektoras Lygizos, Anestis Azas, Sylvia Liouliou, et al.

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 writes in “yusra” magazine.

Chara Kotsali is a participant of Onassis AiR for 2023-24 in the context of Grand Luxe Network and for 2024-25 through the Dramaturgy Fellowship.