A BOUNCE 4 MEN

Two beats in quick succession are all it takes to whip us up. And two slow beats are enough to bring us down.

A dropping pulse signifies death and silence, emptiness and nothingness. A rising pulse means adrenaline, stress, action, life, love, fear, and dread.

A bounce is a kind of pulse. A bounce is also a kind of pain that goes and comes back stronger, reminding you of the danger and spurring you into action – urging you to do something.

Beyond the stereotypes of male-dominated hip hop culture – which demands proof of your strength, dominance, and power – four men battle to find their own pulse, to be led into something deeper, more essential, more primal. Sometimes through humor and self-deprecation, other times through brutality, violence, and fear.

A bounce will be the medicine for combatting their masculine hang-ups, their misogyny, their fears when it comes to anything different, to sex, to the Other. This quadrumvirate take a stand against that man who sees sexuality as a source of punishment, shame, and guilt, and violence as a way out of any confrontation, be it within his own self or with others, and which sadly nestles, or has nestled in the past inside the minds of many – and not just inside the men.

The production team have long worked in the world of hip hop.

Dimitris Karageorgos (Dwave) is a professional dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher. Over the last decade, he has danced as part of theater and television productions, taught at schools and studios, and won awards at competitions in Greece and beyond. He is a graduate of the Aktina Professional Dance School, where he trained on a full scholarship.

Periklis Petrakis (Virtuozo) has worked as a professional dancer for the last eleven years. Starting out in hip hop, he went on to draw his influences from contemporary dance, popping, house, krump, and breakdance. He has taken part in and won a number of hip hop battles in Greece and beyond, and has extensive experience as a teacher, and in training dancers for competitions and battles. Hip hop dance culture, and the dance forms connected to it, inspire him as a dancer and performer, and function as an inexhaustible wellspring for transformation, development, and fresh creation.

Kostas Phoenix began his dance journey at the age of 12 with breaking. He graduated from the National School of Dance (KSOT) in 2016 and has since worked with numerous choreographers and other artists, both in Greece and beyond. His art is inspired by human situations and stories, the traditional dances and myths of various peoples, martial arts, street dance forms, and the fantasy genre (books and films).

Haris Chatziandreou (Haribo) started out in dance at the age eight, and at the age of 14 began focusing more exclusively on hip hop freestyle, taking part in battles in Greece and beyond. He then turned his attentions to teaching and choreographing, while also performing in works by Greek and international choreographers. His main source of inspiration is his passion for music.

Choreographer Ilias Chatzigeorgiou started out as a self-taught hip hop dancer at the age of ten and hasn’t stopped since.

The role of the DJ in the performance is played by the musician Alexis Falantas, who writes electronic music with English lyrics, and also works as a professional video maker and sound engineer. In 2017, he released the album “De Profundis” – which he composed and produced – as a duo named Stargaze Community. His music is characterized by the processing of original materials for the production of a singular aesthetic.

Collaborating with Onassis Stegi since 2012, Ilias Chatzigeorgiou was one of the dancer-choreographers involved in the Dancing to Connect educational program for teens (2013–2020), and assistant choreographer to Patricia Apergi for the seven-year-long 65+ program – a movement workshop for people aged 65+ (2014–2020). We’ve also seen him at Onassis Stegi as a dancer in productions by the choreographer Patricia Apergi – “Era poVera” (2012) and “Cementary” (2017) – as well as in “The Primary Fact” (2018), a video installation created by Apergi in collaboration with the Japanese visual artist Hikaru Fujii. He has also appeared as a dancer in the works “It’s Up to You” (2013) by the Chapter Two company (presented in Athens and New York), “aROUND” (2015) by Lia Tsolaki, “Gala” (2017) by Jérôme Bel, and “RISK” by Ioanna Portolou (2018).

Ilias Chatzigeorgiou has served as a dance consultant at the Athens Epidaurus Festival since 2019.

Everything around us follows a pulse. We do too. A pulse cannot be controlled, unless you are able to elicit a response. Dancers and musicians create their own pulses, enter into them, and live inside them. They often take others in with them. And that’s when a pulse becomes collective, resonating with connotations given to it by those sharing in it. This is how a vibration you’ve created acquires meaning. Acquires meaning and leaves its mark – on the moment, and even on history itself.

Ten handclaps can effectuate great change in space and time and stillness, in the bravery of the individual and the power of the many.

They can be the start of a successful pulse, one that can affect everyone.

The success of a pulse depends on how catchy it is, something determined by the moment, by its intensity and persistence, and by the need it has to be relayed. Which is to say, by its truth. And so its greatest significance – its absolute achievement – comes when it ceases to beat. At the moment when it stops. It is at this precise point that the reason for its initiation and its duration is made complete.

—Ilias Chatzigeorgiou