Three Greek groups ready to attend Balkan Dance Platform
Three Greek dance troupes – Apostolia Papadamaki’s Quasi Stellar, Ioanna Portolou’s Griffon and the duo of Yiannis Mandafounis and Katerina Skiada – are set to participate in the Third Balkan Dance Platform, running from November 3-6 in Skopje. The event, which is organized by the Lokomotiva Center for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture, brings together dance groups from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, the host Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and, for the first time, Croatia and Turkey. The BDP, as it has come to be known, is considered the most important contemporary dance event in the region as it presents all the latest trends in dance in the Balkans. Held every two years (in Sofia in 2001 and Bucharest in 2003), the underlying aim of the festival is to play an active role in the evolution of contemporary dance on a regional scale by presenting and promoting choreographers and dancers, supporting their new productions and providing a forum for communication and networking between different groups. The Greek artists who will be traveling to the capital city next month will have the opportunity not just to show their work outside the Greek borders, but also to represent the creative output of Greece, to meet artists and festival directors from other countries and to prepare the ground for the Balkan Dance Platform of 2007, which is scheduled to take place in Greece. Quasi Stellar will be presenting a piece titled «Hermaphrodite,» choreographed by Papadamaki, Griffon is presenting Portolou’s «Fractal» and the third Greek piece is «Shadow Screenings» by Mandafounis and Skiada. The Greek mission is sponsored by the Ioannis F. Costopoulos Foundation. From other countries, visitors to the BDP in Skopje will be able to see «Map of Thoughts» by Romania’s Maria Baroncea, «One Way Inside» by Kire Miladinoski from FYROM, «A Piece of Monologue» by Serbia’s Milos Sofrenovic, «Kardioadapter» by Croatia’s Silvia Marchig, and «Fleshdance» by Croatia’s Nikolina Pristas, among many others. For more detailed information, visit the site www.lokomotiva.org.mk.
