Dance

Transverse Orientation

Dimitris Papaioannou

Dates

Prices

5 — 55 €

Location

Onassis Stegi

Time & Date

Day
Time
Venue
Day
Wednesday 22 & Thursday 23 December
Time
20:30
Venue
Main Stage
Day
Sunday 26 - Thursday 30 December
Time
20:30
Venue
Main Stage
Day
Saturday 1 - Monday 3 January
Time
20:30
Venue
Main Stage
Day
Wednesday 5 - Sunday 9, January
Time
20:30
Venue
Main Stage
Day
Wednesday 12 - Sunday, 16 January
Time
20:30
Venue
Main Stage

Information

Tickets

Onassis Stegi Friends presale: from 24 NOV 2021, 17:00

General presale: from 01 DEC 2021, 17:00

Full price: 7, 25, 32, 40, 48, 55 €
Reduced, Friend & Groups 5-9 people: 20, 26, 32, 38, 44 €
Groups 10+ people: 18, 23, 29, 34, 39 €
Neighborhood residents: 7 €
Unemployed, People with disabilities: 5 €
Companions: 5, 10 €


Group ticket reservations at groupsales@onassis.org

Duration

1 hour & 40 minutes (no interval)

Attendance Instructions

To ensure public safety, audience arrivals have been staggered into four 15-minute time slots.

A' time slot: 19:30-19:45 – 2nd Balcony
B' time slot: 19:45-20:00 – 1st Balcony
C' time slot: 20:00-20:15 – Main Floor Rows Μ-Τ
D' time slot: 20:15-20:30 – Main Floor Rows Δ-Λ

Age guidance

18+

Let’s keep our balance, so as not to lose our way. Dimitris Papaioannou’s new work orientates us towards the source of light.

Photo: Julian Mommert

Dimitris Papaioannou has garnered rapturous acclaim in the first international press reviews for his new Onassis Stegi production: “If Michelangelo had been active in this era, would he not have left such a work?” wonders the Korean “auditorium.kr”; “A jewel, of ingenuity and of beauty,” writes the French “Le Progrès”; “A long act of artistic magic created before our eyes by the superbly precise performers,” notes the “New York Times”. This December at Onassis Stegi, the curtain will rise on “Transverse Orientation”, a work set to dazzle us all once more.

Each new work that Papaioannou creates is something you want to experience. Because “Papaioannou is without doubt one of the four most important choreographers in the world,” as noted by “Le Figaro” in June 2021. His images, movements, and sounds launch us towards the source of life and of creation, of imagination and play, and call on us to discover our own truths, closer to the light. Transverse orientation is the method by which insects keep a fixed angle on a distant source of light for orientation – this is why they fly towards all that shines. This latest Onassis Stegi – Dimitris Papaioannou production, co-produced by more than 20 major international venues and institutions, began touring the globe in June 2021.

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Parallel Event

Wednesday 12 January 2022

After-performance talk with Dimitris Papaioannou

Moderated by Simos Kakalas, director

Photo: Julian Mommert

Transverse Orientation | Dimitris Papaioannou

Six minutes and forty-three seconds from the new universe created by Dimitris Papaioannou for his new international co-production titled “Transverse Orientation”.

Four hundred and three seconds of indescribable beauty from a Greek artist whose every work gives rise to a world you want to visit.

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More than 500 hundred performers and dancers from all over the world auditioned in the spring of 2019. The chosen ones started rehearsing with Dimitris Papaioannou in January 2020, and were forced suddenly to stop in March 2020 by the lockdown.

The premiere of Onassis Stegi’s second international co-production with Dimitris Papaioannou was scheduled for December that same year, on its Main Stage, but the shuttering of all performance venues made this date unfeasible.

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Read more

“My works evolve during rehearsal, they are not composed beforehand. I prepare material only in order to kickstart the process – and most of the time, I throw it out. I’ve resolved to not know what the outcome will be ahead of time, to trust in the process. In the end, if I am lucky, the work reveals itself, and I try to understand it, to perfect it. I reserve the right to change it all at the last moment. That’s why it is difficult for me to talk to you about something before it has actually come to completion. What’s the use of plans and pretensions? Art is praxis. If I talk about it, I will only either mislead you or betray the work.”
—Dimitris Papaioannou

Dimitris Papaioannou’s new work follows his acclaimed trilogy, comprised of “Primal Matter” and the two works that toured (and are, in fact, still touring) internationally, in co-production with Stegi: “Still Life” and “The Great Tamer”.

The immediate predecessor to the work, which was also staged at Stegi, was “Since She”, with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch (18-21/12/2018).

The piece took its final form at Onassis Stegi Main Stage after 1,5 month of rehearsals by D. Papaioannou and his team.

Programmed for the 2019-20 & 2020-21 seasons, the production was cancelled due to the precautionary national health measures put in place by the Greek government to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

Α special publication about Dimitris Papaioannou

Available to buy inside the Main Lobby Foyer at Onassis Stegi: a book about Dimitris Papaioannou dedicated to his stage work “The Great Tamer” – an international Onassis Stegi production that toured 33 cities across four continents, thrilling more than 68,000 people. A book by Onassis Publications.

Credits

  • Conceived, Visualized & Directed by

    Dimitris Papaioannou

  • With

    Damiano Ottavio Bigi, Šuka Horn, Jan Möllmer, Breanna O’Mara, Tina Papanikolaou, Łukasz Przytarski, Christos Strinopoulos, Michalis Theophanous

  • Music

    Antonio Vivaldi

  • Set Design

    Tina Tzoka & Loukas Bakas

  • Sound Composition & Design

    Coti K.

  • Costume Design

    Aggelos Mendis

  • Collaborative Lighting Designer

    Stephanos Droussiotis

  • Music Supervisor

    Stephanos Droussiotis

  • Sculptures, Special Constructions & Props

    Nectarios Dionysatos

  • Mechanical Inventions

    Dimitris Korres

  • Creative - Executive Producer & Assistant Director

    Tina Papanikolaou

  • Assistant Directors & Rehearsal Directors

    Pavlina Andriopoulou & Drossos Skotis

  • Assistant to the Set Designers

    Tzela Christopoulou

  • Assistant to the Sound Composer

    Martha Kapazoglou

  • Assistant to the Costume Designer

    Aella Tsilikopoulou

  • Special Constructions - Props Assistant

    Eva Tsambasi

  • Photography & Cinematography

    Julian Mommert

  • Technical Director

    Manolis Vitsaxakis

  • Assistant to the Technical Director

    Marios Karaolis

  • Stage Manager, Sound Engineer & Props Constructions

    David Blouin

  • Props Master

    Tzela Christopoulou

  • Lighting Programmer

    Stephanos Droussiotis

  • Costumes Construction

    Litsa Moumouri, Efi Karantasiou, Islam Kazi

  • Stage Technicians

    Kostas Kakoulidis, Evgenios Anastopoulos, Panos Koutsoumanis

  • Lighting Constructions

    Miltos Athanasiou

  • Silicone Baby made by

    Joanna Bobrzynska-Gomes

  • Props Team

    Natalia Fragkathoula, Marilena Kalaitzantonaki, Timothy Laskaratos, Anastasis Meletis, Antonis Vassilakis

  • Executive Production

    2WORKS in collaboration with POLYPLANITY Productions

  • Executive Production Associate

    Vicky Strataki

  • Executive Production Assistant

    Kali Kavvatha

  • Props Production Manager

    Pavlina Andriopoulou

  • International Relations & Communications Manager

    Julian Mommert

  • We would like to thank the team at

    Lemon Poppy Seed for styling the performers’ hair.

  • A production of

    Onassis Stegi

  • Created to be premiered at

    Onassis Stegi (2021)

  • Co-Produced by

    Festival D’avignon (Avignon), Biennale de la danse de Lyon 2021 (Lyon), Dance Umbrella / Sadler's Wells Theatre (London), Fondazione Campania dei Festival - Napoli Teatro Festival Italia (Naples), Grec Festival de Barcelona (Barcelona), Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Luminato (Toronto) / TO Live (Toronto), New Vision Arts Festival (Hong Kong), Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen (Recklinghausen), Saitama Arts Theatre / ROHM Theatre Kyoto (Kyoto), Stanford Live / Stanford University (Stanford), Teatro Municipal do Porto (Porto),Théâtre de la Ville - Paris / Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (Los Angeles)

  • With the support of

    Festival Aperto (Reggio Emilia), Festival de Otoño de la Comunidad de Madrid, (Madrid), HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts (Dresden), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), New Baltic Dance Festival (Vilnius), ONE DANCE WEEK Festival (Plovdiv), P.P. Culture Enterprises Ltd (Tel Aviv), TANEC PRAHA International Dance Festival (Praha), Teatro della Pergola – Firenze (Florence), Torinodanza Festival / Teatro Stabile di Torino - Teatro Nazionale (Torino)

With funding from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports.


Dimitris Papaioannou is supported by MEGARON – THE ATHENS CONCERT HALL.

Sponsors / Partners