A User’s Manual

Konstantinos Papanikolaou also featured in the previous edition of the Onassis New Choreographers Festival (ONC8) with his lecture-performance “The Diving Horse and Other Mythologies”. This work was also presented in Luxembourg on February 3, 2022 – this time before a live audience – at the Trois C-L Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois. This presentation was realized as part of the support provided by the GRANDE LUXE network, of which Onassis Stegi is a member (via its “Outward Turn” Cultural Export Program).

Portions of the research and development for “A User’s Manual” were undertaken at Trois C-L (Luxembourg) and Le Grand Studio (Brussels) as part of the GRANDE LUXE network’s annual support program. Konstantinos Papanikolaou is one of eight emerging European choreographers being supported by the network throughout the 2021–22 season, taking part in a varied program of events (residencies, platforms, seminars, meetings, and presentations of work).

We are constantly exposed to representations of a “reality” that’s a far cry from the actual circumstances of our everyday lives. We identify with such representations through a game of validation and rejection that conceals certain other possible options from us. And we assimilate these representations as stereotypes, thus legitimizing dominant discourses that not only do us a disservice but also often undermine us. While we may have our reasons for doing what we do, we are not however mindful of what what we’re doing actually does.

—Konstantinos Papanikolaou