Onassis New Choreographers Festival 8

Saturday 20 March | 20:00-22:00 (UTC+2)

"Axel’s just dreaming", 16’

"YES HALLO HI", 4’

"All she likes is popping bubble wrap", 17’ 37’’

"yaGrid", 10’ 18’’

“The Diving Horse and Other Mythologies”, 34’ 54’’

“ILISSOS / limbo eξótica”, 10’ 17’’

Sunday 21 March | 20:00-22:00 (UTC+2)

"442, or A Game Without Score", 53’

"RED RIDING SHOES", 8’ 44’’

"The cooking-with-Nadi show", 19’ 33’’

"Besuch", 26’ 46’’

"Pose_Transpose", 1’ 36’’ (Estimated website browsing time 26’ 30’’)

For the first time ever, Onassis Stegi’s most “physical” festival will be happening in ways that are entirely digital. Eleven original choreographic works – liberated from notions of “pop” versus “high art”, and with a particular soft spot for humor, the absurd, and the unexpected – will all be premiering on YouTube, Instagram, and online. Everything from coming-of-age dance shorts to music videos and from dance-cookery lessons to roving performances, filmed works, interactive maps, texts and images, stick figures, studio visits, and performative talks.

Filmmakers, scientists, programmers, digital media artists, and even YouTubers, influencers, and bloggers all now collaborate closely with choreographers. While not all artists have turned into tech-freaks overnight, more than a few are experimenting with artificial intelligence and working with interfaces, touch sensors, and GoPro cameras, as well as chat rooms, selfies, and social media stories, thus digitally (and otherwise) expanding the hybrid and groundbreaking world of contemporary dance.

Fully aware of the contradictions and functions artists are being forced to face and take on in this time of pandemic-induced suspended animation and digital ferment, the form of this year’s festival is not forced by the impossibility of presenting works live but rather driven by a constant of our own devising. Back in 2016, with an exhibition titled “Digital Revolution”, we opened a discussion on how art is made in a time when everything – from socializing to flirting – takes place within the context of pervasive, non-stop networking. Last spring, we created a digital time capsule capturing the “here and now” – the “ENTER” series. And now we’re welcoming key representatives of a new generation of artists, at work in the Greek contemporary dance scene, onto our digital stage.

—Iliana Dimadi

—Konstantinos Tzathas

—Steriani Tsintziloni