FFF4 | Peregrinus

Zoi Dimitriou, a top graduate of the Greek National School of Dance, continued her studies at the Trisha Brown School in New York on an Onassis Foundation scholarship.

In "You May!", her previous work at the Onassis Stegi in 2012, Zoi Dimitriou explored risk margins and the limits of tolerance through the strict structure of contemporary society. She drew inspiration from Chris Marker's masterpiece of French film, "La Jetée" (1962) for the work.

In her work "In the Process of" (2010), a man and a woman negotiate the multiple versions of the end of their relationship. Sixty wooden hoops of the sort used by gymnasts intervene in the action, sometimes helping and sometimes hindering the couple's relationship, at other times rendering them the solitary protagonists of the action on stage.

One of her recent works, "The Chapter House" (2014), which is based on five earlier choreographies which have been digitally "interfered with" in accordance with a complex algorithm, was hailed as a contemporary ritual and a highly original take on what a retrospective could mean for an artist.

The first phase of "Peregrinus", which the Onassis Stegi is now presenting, was developed at the Blank Canvas Residency in Firkin Crane, Ireland, and at the Duncan Dance Centre in Athens.

The dramaturgy is the work of the British theatre researcher and University of Roehampton professor, Joe Kelleher, the author of numerous works including "The Illuminated Theatre: Studies on the Suffering of Images" (Routledge 2014) and, in collaboration with Nicholas Ridout, Claudia and Romeo Castellucci, and Chiara Giudi, "The Theatre of Societas Raffaello Sanzio" (Routledge 2007).

On the enigmatic title "Peregrinus": in the early years of the Roman empire (30 BC-AD 212), the term peregrinus-i (etymology: per [outside, from outside] + ager [field, country) was used to describe the inhabitants of Rome who were not Roman citizens. Due to their numbers, the office of the praetor peregrinus [the praetor of the foreigners] was created to settle differences between Roman and foreign inhabitants and between foreigners.