Soma Choros
Arianna Economou, Petros Konnaris
20.06.2024—20:00
Arianna Economou, Theodoulos Gregoriou, Nicolas Economou
​
To Soma kai o Choros/
The Body and Space
Performance, 1983.
​
©Arianna Economou
Archive Footage
The cultural organisation Sic. Contemporary Culture commences its activities with an activation of the work ‘Soma/Choros’ (Body/Space) by Arianna Economou, the first contemporary dance performance presented in Cyprus in 1983. The activation concerns an extended commentary on the work, through a dialogical performance between Economou and Petros Konnaris."
​
It is noted that ‘Soma/Choros’ is the first presentation of contact improvisation to Cypriot audiences, through a combination of professional and amateur dancers, contemporaneous with the international establishment of the practice by Steve Paxton."
​
It is also one of the first cases of multidisciplinary artistic collaboration, between Economou, visual artist Theodoulos Gregoriou and composer Nicolas Economou. Beyond this collaboration, it is also the first contemporary dance piece presented (in recording) on public television, provoking strong reactions in the press of the time."
​
Reevaluating this important episode in the Cypriot history of art and recontextualising it through collaborative processes, the activation proposes a new way of safekeeping and updating the history of performance and all the themes that concern it. The activation is connected to both the need for archiving the artistic wealth of the country, and to a more democratic and embodied approach to the making of these archives.