The sculptural Body
Performance Installation
Performance Installation
Concept, choreography, performance: Marianthi Michailidou
Video: Roman Zotter
Costume: Mona Veld
This project is inspired by the sculptures and drawings of Rodin. I employ attributes of Rodin’s sculptural art as tools to mold the movement of the body and explore ways of creating meaning through the body.
For example, spiraling, orientation of body surfaces,, relationship of the extremities of the body to the central axis that is the spine, deformed body, the body's three dimensionality, balancing, grace and sensuality.
His knowledge and artistry to capture the nature of the human body and the essence of movement beyond representation and narration enrich and inspire my personal artistic inquiry of placing the body in the center of the choreographic process.
What I investigate in this performance/installation is;
How my movement patterns are challenged,as I engender features of Rodin's sculpture.
How the passage of time and stillness are defined through movement.
How the different forms of the moving body suggest different body/mind states.
In which ways expressiveness doesn’t become a mere representation of the body and abstraction evokes the body’s inner life.
In which ways expressiveness doesn’t become a mere representation of the body and abstraction evokes the body’s inner life.
The fragility and power of the human body, as they manifest through movement don’t contradict each other, instead they reveal the body’s unique potential.
The public is invited to be in the space walking around the moving body.
In that way, possible, multiple readings are opening up, as they view the body from different angles. They also experience the body as it sculpts its way through challenges, delights, deviations and questions.
Dancing in the Library
An interactive/participatory dance project
with Marianthi Michailidou and Natalie Heller
vimeo.com/201534804
Description of the project
Dance artists Marianthi Michailidou and Natalie Heller take the audience through the library to experience books and the library space by means of dance and movement.
My colleague Natalie Heller and myself had a three month residency in the OBA -Public Library in Amsterdam- during which we explored different spaces in the library through the body and movement. We were interested in discovering how each space - with its specific features - invited us to move. Our research involved spending time in the library, walking through, observing people, choosing books, moving, dancing and sensing the space.
We interviewed Amsterdammers about the reasons that bring them to their public library and their reading experiences while there. These findings and insights shaped our process providing us tools to create a solid platform upon which we built the project.
An important part of the project was the act of sharing intimacy .The body – like a
book has its own unique way of telling personal stories and sharing them with the
public (viewers, readers).The audience witnesses different aspects of our moving bodies, as we
dance in close proximity to them.
Therefore, our movement experience was informed by our relationship to the public. We invited
them to be part of the performance by choosing the tasks that we follow, by speaking
about their reading experience, by choosing the location we perform in. The public
became co-creators of the performance.
The three month residency culminated to eight performances in the Public Library,
Short study on James Brown song 'It's a man's man's world'
Description of the project
This performance is a part of an ongoing project which investigates the relationship between the moving/sounding/speaking/
The cornerstone in my research is that the body and the music are dialoguing while keeping their autonomy; two entities breathing together and separately in the course of shared moments.
The body encounters the music in a dynamic dialogue that challenges the perception of time and moulds the space.
Physical memories and embodied stories are coming into life expanding the borders of the music.
A common language is being made which binds, redefines and refines the components of both; the music and the body.
Visual Music
Performance, concept, choreography: Marianthi Michailidou
Performance, concept, choreography: Marianthi Michailidou
Description of the project
This project is inspired by Iannis Xenakis music and Kiki Dimoulas poetry.
The body -physical presence and movement-and Xenakis music establish a dialogue: they exchange images and imagined states of being. On the other hand, physical memories and impulses share the same space and time with the music. In that way, the body and the music co- sew a fabric of rhythms, sound colours, sound spaces , silent ones, stories, feelings and energies by keeping at the same time their autonomy.
I call this visual music.
The voice -in its different forms, language and sounds - is in dialogue with the visual music . The voice is the anchor of the visual music.
I use the poetic text as a vehicle to articulate various dynamics and intentions ,as I imagine it being said by different persons. The emphasis is also put on how the words relate to each other in various ways every time creating a different constellation. The different constellation of the words invites for a particular rhythm and movement.
Spider's web
Performance, concept, choreography
Performance, concept, choreography
Description of the project
In this project, I explore the relationships direct and indirect that are being made between the performers in real time.
Driftwood
An improvised piece made and performed by:
Marianthi Michailidou and Bettina Neuhaus
An improvised piece made and performed by:
Marianthi Michailidou and Bettina Neuhaus
Gods in shiny, filthy clothes spread the news on children’s drawings
A solo performance over a woman's inner landscape that is being haunted by moments that reveal both, inner strength and fragnance.
In this performance, the movement is characterised by counteractions that serve as metaphors for the reconciliations and oppositions that prevail her life.
The relationship between language and movement is a key element in my work and constitutes a lifelong pursuit of the different facets and depths this relationship entails.
Womens'tales
Performance, concept, choreography
Performance, concept, choreography
A solo performance with voice and movement. This performance is inspired by stories about women of different social and cultural environments I heard or read. What these stories share is women's inner strength that enables them to survive under various adverse circumstances.
In terms of movement,the piece evolves around two ideas: a).I initiate movement from within the internal organs(liver, stomach) and explore how this movement affects my body- mind state and b). I set up a physical limitation: I imagine that my body consists only of a spine.
Voice plays an equal role as the body; voice is ingrained into the physical experience.
Ascent descent and vice versa I
Ascent descent and vice versa II
Concept, choreography: Marianthi Michailidou
Made and performed by: Natalia Partheniou, Christos Papadopoulos
Concept, choreography: Marianthi Michailidou
Made and performed by: Natalia Partheniou, Christos Papadopoulos
This piece is inspired by my own personal experience of becoming a mother. Physical sensations feelings and thoughts of that period have restored in my body and become alive through movement. The movement nevertheless does not represent reality,instead it inhabits reality and thus creates another reality; a reality that is embedded in the senses,the kinaesthetic experience and the transformative imagery. Cncept/choreography: Marianthi Michailidou Dancers: Alkistis Theofilou, Natalia Partheniou, Christos Papadopoulos. Open Podium, Danswerkplaats, Amsterdam.
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