ATMA

Is there anything more malleable than the human body? Dance is the art that concerns itself with the body’s transformations, that is interested in our ability both to view the body in poetic ways and to contemplate the human condition through it.

Danae Dimitriadi and Dionysios Alamanos experiment with that most familiar of tools: the body. They explore its fragility but also its endurance, using movement as a means of conveying transformations into and back out of whatever constitutes the natural origins of humankind, whatever has been effaced by culture.

In "ATMA", a series of themes selected for their power to move and sensitize audiences are made visual by the two artists. The bestial is contrasted with the human, the Apollonian with the Dionysian, not so as to create yet another unbridgeable dualistic divide, but rather to incorporate two conflicting aspects into one single nature – for it is the very complementarity of opposing elements that characterizes the totality of humankind.

Before joining forces to develop their works of art together, Danae Dimitriadi and Dionysios Alamanos studied alongside one another at the Greek National School of Dance and danced as part of its Hellenic Dance Company, which was founded in the year 2000 to connect the international dance scene with young Greek talent and has presented works by such choreographers as Martha Graham, Pascal Rioult, Anton Lachky, Jasmin Vardimon, and others.

Beyond their explorations of movement and dance, this young artistic duo also sees the stage as a platform for sharing thoughts and concerns about the current state of the environment and of life on our planet more generally – urging us to reconsider our existence via a framework that brings us closer to nature and all other living things, to re-examine our priorities so as to create once more the vital time and space that will allow us to live in perfect balance and harmony with all things.

The Hidden Life of Trees – an international bestseller written by German forester Peter Wohlleben – anthropomorphizes trees in order to help us understand both their behavior and the complex network of relationships that develop between plants. Dance, on the other hand, makes frequent use of zoomorphism in order to help us grasp differing qualities of movement, creating in this way sense perceptions of bodies engaged in dance that are more direct.