This production is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] to enhance the GNO's artistic outreach.
The Greek National Opera Ballet presents three contemporary dance pieces. GNO Ballet Director Konstantinos Rigos enters into creative discourse on contemporary movement vocabularies with two of the dance world's leading lights - the Czech Jiří Kylián and the Israeli Ohad Naharin.
The Pedal Tone for a Child
Choreography - Sets: Konstantinos Rigos
Music: Giorgos Koumendakis
Conductor: Lukas Karytinos
Costumes: Giorgos Segredakis
Lighting: Eleftheria Deko
ssociate architect: Mary Tsagari
Dancers:
Christina Makridou (20 & 22/05), Popi Sakellaropoulou (18 & 21/05), Jovanka Zaric (18 & 21/05), Olga Zourbina (20 & 22/05)
Danilo Zeka (18, 20, 21 & 22/05), Stratos Papanousis (20 & 22/05), Igor Siadzko (18 & 21/05), Yannis Mitrakis (18 & 21/05), Thanassis Solomos (20 & 22/05)
With the GNO Orchestra and with the participation of students of the GNO Professional Dance School and the Greek National School of Dance (KSOT)
GNO Ballet Director Konstantinos Rigos presents a new choreography for a piece by Giorgos Koumendakis - The Pedal Tone for a Child. The work, inspired by Byzantine music, concerns itself with discovering a world of nature and of tradition. With his new choreography, Rigos transports us into a dystopian and forsaken black-and-white world where an abandoned advertising billboard stands like a scarecrow on the far horizon. The ground is overgrown with weeds, while certain wooden beams look like guns left over from some long-forgotten conflict. Adolescence, dreams, and romanticism. Anguish for the future or anguish for nothing at all. The bounds of the world are shifting - all the world lies at our feet, all the world arches over our heads.
Are our choices truly our own or are they predetermined? The Pedal Tone for a Child is a work for a mixed ensemble consisting of GNO ballet dancers, and dance students. Experience and knowledge meet the rough and ready and vulnerable, giving rise to risk expressed through movement, notes Konstantinos Rigos.
Petite Mort
Choreography - Sets - Light designs: Jiří Kylián
Music: W. A. Mozart
Costumes: Joke Visser
Areti Noti (18 & 21/05) / Magda Koukou-Ferra (20 & 22/05)
Daniele Pecorari(18 & 21/05) / Angel Martinez-Sanchez (20 & 22/05)
Alicia Townsend (18 & 21/05) / Zoi Schoinoplokaki (20 & 22/05)
Arieh Bates-Vinueza (18 & 21/05) /Jaume Deulofeu-Segui (20 & 22/05)
Eleftheria Stamou(18 & 21/05) / Areti Noti (20 & 22/05)
Manex Alberdi(18 & 21/05) / Daniele Pecorari (20 & 22/05)
Elena Kekkou (18 & 21/05) / Eleftheria Stamou (20 & 22/05)
Vangelis Bikos (18 & 21/05) / Danilo Zeka (20 & 22/05)
Marita Nikolitsa(18 & 21/05) / Alicia Townsend (20 & 22/05)
Yannis Gantsios (18 & 21/05) / orgos Hatzopoulos (20 & 22/05)
Margarita Kostoglou (18 & 21/05) / Ariadni Filippaki (20 & 22/05)
Stelios Katopodis (18 & 21/05) / Yannis Mitrakis (20 & 22/05)
The great Jiří Kylián, who served as Artistic Director of Nederlands Dans Theater from 1975 to 1999, first presented this choreography in Salzburg to mark the bicentennial of Mozart's death, setting the work to slow movements taken from two of Mozart's most popular Piano Concertos - Nos. 21 and 23. Aggression and sexuality, energy and silence all play an important role in this choreography - Petite mort (which means small death) is, after all, a euphemism for an orgasm in French and Arabic. The choreographer notes: This deliberate choice should not be seen as a provocation or thoughtlessness - rather as my way to acknowledge the fact that I am living and working as part of a world where nothing is sacred, where brutality and arbitrariness are commonplace.
Minus 16
Choreography - Costumes: Ohad Naharin
Music: Dean Martin; Dick Dale; Tractor's Revenge & Ohad Naharin;
Vivaldi; Harold Arlen / Marusha; Asia 2001; Chopin
Lighting: Avi Yona Bueno (Bambi)
Dancers:
Jovanka Zaric, Elena Kekkou, Magda Koukou-Ferra, Margarita Kostoglou, Marita Nikolitsa, Areti Noti, Marta Rivero-De Miranda, Eleftheria Stamou, Zoi Schoinoplokaki, Alicia Townsend, Ariadni Filippaki
Vangelis Bikos, Manex Albertdi, Yannis Gantsios, Angel Martinez-Sanchez, Yannis Mitrakis, Arieh Bates-Vinueza, Jaume Deulofeu-Segui, Elton Dimrochi, Daniel Pecorari, Yorgos Hatzopoulos
Incorporating music that ranges from Dean Martin to mambo, and from techno to traditional Israeli music, Minus 16 was created by the exceptional Ohad Naharin, current House Choreographer and former Artistic Director (1990 to 2019) of the renowned Batsheva Dance Company. Naharin is also the creator of Gaga - a singular movement language that enables dancers to move past their usual limits, both within their work and beyond. Minus 16 is a piece that eliminates the barrier between its dancers and the audience in unique and unpredictable ways.
