Slamming | Xenia Koghilaki

Equally based in Athens and Berlin, Xenia Koghilaki is already in an orbit of extroversion following her work "Bang Bang Bodies", which premiered at the Tanztage Berlin and was later presented as part of the Onassis Dance Days 2023. Her new work, "Slamming", in organic affinity with her previous work that bore headbanging as its main theme, deals once again with the choreographic expansions of a crowd-in-concert, featuring herself and two performers on stage.

The three of them commit to one shared agreement: a ritualistic dance that originates from slamming. They transform mosh pit practices on stage, oscillating between rage and softness, rawness and trust, ache and pleasure, violence and tenderness, exploring these notions not as dipoles but as interconnected elements within a sui generis dance form. The audience ‘sees’ the sweat dripping, the breaths intensifying, and the hearts beating faster while the three performers are wholeheartedly “caught into a mosh”.

The new choreographic work by Xenia Koghilaki seeks certain emotional nuances in the aggressive crowd, reconstituting a collective ritual that lurks behind an ostensible rage. "Slamming" approaches crowd dances not as something to be deciphered but as a site of experience, exploring the significance of collective movement as a practice of resistance.

Supported by the Onassis Stegi “Outward Turn” Cultural Export Program.

Onassis AiR Fellow Xenia Koghilaki carried out part of the "Slamming (work in progress)" research at the BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen, Norway, within the context of the Transmissions program supported by EEA Grants and the Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021.