Soma Choros (Body Space) - Activation 2
Theodoulos Gregoriou, Panayiotis Michael, Evagoras Vanezis
05.09.2024
Arianna Economou, Theodoulos Gregoriou, Nicolas Economou
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To Soma kai o Choros/
The Body and Space
Performance.
The cultural organisation Sic. Contemporary Culture continues its activities with the second activation of the work ‘Soma/Choros’ (Body/Space) by Arianna Economou, the first contemporary dance performance presented in Cyprus in 1983, a multidisciplinary artistic collaboration between Economou, visual artist Theodoulos Gregoriou and composer Nicolas Economou.
For this activation, Gregoriou presented an extended commentary on the artistic components of the work and the period, in discussion with Panayiotis Michael and Evagoras Vanezis. Other documents (photographs, models) from the artist's archive were also exhibited.
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 the first contemporary dance piece presented (in recording) on public television, provoking strong reactions in the press of the time.
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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.