2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture presents Mystery 59 U(R)TOPIAS Academy of Choreography, under the artistic direction of Patricia Apergi and the Aerites Contemporary Dance Company. After four years of development, the project culminates on 30, 31 May and 1 June 2025, with a site-based, walking performance in the public space of Elefsina.
Two years after Dance MyS+eries / Season 2, which laid the groundwork for engaging with public space, the Academy returns with Dance MyS+eries / Season 4. This time, it maps a route that explores the city’s neighborhoods and hidden landmarks, opening a dialogue between private and public space, and the possibilities that emerge in between.
Six emerging choreographers, who have been attending the Academy’s two-year program and working consistently in the city, present their 15-minute performances along a route that connects the director’s residence at TITAN, the first industrial complex, and the unseen side of Elefsina, following the paths of trucks and the rhythms of everyday life in the city.
Dance MyS+eries / Season 4 is structured as a series of episodes, with each episode being the work of a different choreographer – a unique station on the journey. Each station illuminates a hidden facet of the city, inviting the audience on a journey through the space and time of Elefsina.
A Few Words About Mystery 59 U(R)TOPIAS Academy of Choreography
The artistic project Mystery 59 U(R)TOPIAS Academy of Choreography, as part of 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture artistic programme, has hosted since 2021 emerging professional choreographers who sought to cultivate their skills in composition and choreography.
Each young choreographer was invited to construct their own personal utopia — their own “non-place” — and present it as a dance work. The aim of the program was to highlight emblematic locations of Elefsina through the choreographers’ site-specific creations, thus crafting a new map of the city.
Through their participation in the Academy, the artists developed their compositional abilities and shaped their own creative approaches under the guidance of distinguished creators and professionals from the arts, including art historians, theorists, and producers.
s.04 ep.01
Station: Elephant
Choreographer: Angelos Papadopoulos
“When I was a child, my mother – who didn’t speak Greek very well at the time – would watch Dumbo on TV with me. She couldn’t understand the words, but she held me and told me that one day I would fly too, far away from the city.”
Excerpt from an interview with a resident of Elefsina, February 2024
This piece focuses on listening to the voice that emerges from within when everything around us falls silent. It brings to the surface a constant oscillation between fragility and determination – a body sculpted by its own voice. Through vocal motifs, rhythmic gestures, improvisation, and repetitive structures, the work unfolds the experience of growing up in the city of Elefsina as both a personal memory and a universal question: Which voice inside us moves us? Which voice cares for us?
The C., moving between silence and scream, searches for a point of balance. The voice of M. becomes a mirror, a maternal memory, a filter – sometimes it leads, sometimes it restrains, sometimes it provokes. The rhythm of the metronome becomes a heartbeat, a tool for transition.
This work does not narrate a story – it is the process of its own birth. From the minimal to the monumental.
Credits
Concept • Choreography: Angelos Papadopoulos
Original Music Composition: Marissa Bili
Photography: Dimitra Tzanou
Performance: Haris Dimos
s.04 ep.02
Station: Collect Yourself
Choreographer: Elina Demirtzioglou
Inspired by the women who worked at the TITAN factory in Elefsina, Collect Yourself explores the connection between people and cement, using cement as a metaphor for human experience and personal development. Just as cement hardens through a process, so too do people toughen through their experiences. These experiences can crack us, even make us lose parts of ourselves. But how necessary is this process in order to finally break through our own “cement” and find freedom?
Credits
Concept • Choreography: Elina Demirtzioglou
Set Design: Panos Prophetis
Sound Design: Vassilina
Promo Material / Teaser Design: Angelos Sokos
Performance / Co-creation of material: Emma Antivasi, Xenia Stathouli, Elena Psimmenou
Acknowledgments: Argyro Orfanoudaki, Mary Giannoula, Gizem Bilgen
s.04 ep.03
Station: Enypnio (Dreamstate)
Choreographer: Nefeli Theodotou
Between the conscious and the unconscious, all elements sleepwalk and intermingle without fully matching. Memory and dance intersect the real and the dreamlike, placing them in an in-between field – between sleep and wakefulness. The piece draws inspiration from the dreams of Elefsina’s residents and creates a space of images, forms, and movements that interweave and communicate through an ever-changing vocabulary. Three bodies explore this in-between non-place and tell mosaic-like stories, giving form to the collective imaginary of a city that dreams.
Credits
Concept • Choreography: Nefeli Theodotou
Costume Design: Apostolos Mitropoulos
Music: RAAD
Promo Photography: Marios Chatziantoni
Performance: Velma Andrianaki, Nefeli Theodotou, Ioanna Kagiou
Acknowledgments: Daphne Stasini, Aliki, Eleftheria, Vasiliki, Karolina, the Cult_terra team, Giorgos Prifti, Ad:Mark
s.04 ep.04
Station: That is all I stand up for
Choreographer: Mary Giannoula
What happens in a place where everything has already happened?
From the reality of a courtyard, I visit a place where physical exhaustion occurs with the purpose of transformation and the anticipation of a mysterious “something,” exploring how imagination is summoned as a means of survival and change. The stillness of the body during intense effort, a defined space with undefined possibilities, becomes a battleground, a prayer, an expression of frustration, a promise — a commitment not to give up before giving everything to the chaos of tenderness. A song dedicated to Elefsina, a city that wounds and is wounded; a dreamlike passage toward the unattainable dream, the escape, the moment when the body is everything and nothing — exhaustion, hope, frustration, a transcendental step toward the unknown.
Credits
Concept • Choreography • Lyrics • Performance: Mary Giannoula
Music / Teaser / Photography: Alexis Falantas
Set Design: Eudokia Makri, Fofo Mastori
s.04 ep.05
Station: ecHoos
Choreographer: Dimitris Baltas
A metal construction. A structure. And a person who inhabits it. A place both familiar and alien. The person soon realizes that they no longer belong here. In an attempt to explore and make sense of the environment, they try to adapt to this new space, constantly confronted by their own limits and their past. Through a relentless shifting of positions and paths, the piece questions how much one must change to fit into a new place — and to what extent that place will be altered by their presence.
ecHoos is a performance that examines the relationship between the contemporary individual and the society they live in. It focuses on the idea of the “outsider” — one who comes from a different “place” — and questions whether we truly belong to the social, political, or racial space we chose (or happened) to find ourselves in, and whether our entire journey is a struggle for adaptation.
Credits
Concept • Choreography • Set Design • Performance: Dimitris Baltas
Photography: Elina Demirtzioglou, Dimitris Baltas
Acknowledgments: Odysseas Zafeiras, the M54 team, Akropoditi Dance and Performing Arts Centre in Syros
*The performance features the traditional piece “Skaros”, arranged by the group Gidiki.
s.04 ep.06
Station: Lunar Seaga
Choreographer: Antonis Vais
This work is an attempt to stage a dream. Elefsina is transformed into an imaginary land, and the body, as an intermediary, defines the measure for transcendence or harmony. It is a personal journey through the uncanny landscape of Vlycha, where the fusion of artificial materials and natural elements seeks to express the corporeality of transition and the inexhaustible relationship between creation and destruction.
Credits
Concept • Choreography • Performance: Antonis Vais
Co-creation / Artistic Supervision / Video Art: Haris Savvopoulos
Music Composition: Nonika (Marcel Coka)
Choreographer’s Assistant: Angelos Lokos
Landscape Research / Photography: Maria Kosmidi
Visual Supervision: Iria Vrettou
Lighting Design: Afroditi Neri
Stage Supervision: Dimitris Zabopoulos
Technical Support: Vasilis Papailiopoulos
Teaser: Antonis Vais, Haris Savvopoulos
