Palm in Palm

According to Hesiod’s "Theogony", at the beginning there was Chaos; Chaos here conveys the meaning of a ‘gap’, of a dark empty space rather than ‘disorder’. From Chaos came Erebus and Night; without any love union, Gaia gives birth to Uranus. Entwined, they are an inseparable. What can bridge these cosmological views with contemporary dance? Does creation itself have a cosmogonic character?

Having recently completed her post-graduate studies in choreography, Ioanna Angelopoulou returns to Athens to present her second version of "Palm to Palm". Her work re-examines the cosmogonic myth and its erotic overtones. It seeks to find correlations between bodily conditions and such notions as freedom and oppression. A cone construction on stage and the soundscape, composed of the polyphonic vocal group Pleiades, create a personal and archetypal space. The dancers engage in actions where embracing is interchanged with violent repulsion, proximity with distance. In other words, it is a kinesiological study that attempts to place us at the ‘origin of things’, to touch our utmost inner being, before bringing into light an ideal co-existence of body and sound analogous to the relationship of Gaia and Uranus.

Research for this work was supported by Palucca University and the Isadora & Raymond Duncan Dance Research Center, where the work was first performed.