CULTURE

Two dance companies on stage

Two dance companies, Daniel Lommel’s Aenaon Dance Theater and Valia Alexandratou’s Analysis Dance Company, present their work in Athens this week. Starting tonight, Daniel Lommel is staging the choreographies «Oikia Alba» (Alba House) and «Divertimento» at the Meli Theater, as part of the 5th Dance Festival. «Alba House» is inspired by Lorca’s «House of Bernarda Alba» and «Divertimento» features music by Mozart. «Poet Miguel Hernandez’s elegy for Lorca, the ‘Elegia a la muerte de Garcia Lorca,’ leads us to the world of the ‘Alba House,’» said Lommel, responsible for the choreography. «It is a world of silence and battle, a kind of monastery and hell at the same time, with a suffocating atmosphere that reflects death. It is a world where Bernarda rules as an absolute monarch. That female part is played by a male dancer (Matteo Bittante), so as to stress the feral aspects of her personality.» The original score, written especially for the performance, is by Yuri Stupel. Participating dancers, apart from Bittante, are Zefi Bartzoka, Elena Papadopoulou and others. Performances will run to May 8. «In order to visualize dance, we must dance artistically.» That is how Valia Alexandratou expresses her artistic creation. After studying in New York and working there for 12 years, as a dancer first and then as a choreographer, she returned to Greece in 2003 as a guest of the National Ballet School, where she currently works as a guest choreographer in repertoire works. She is presenting her new choreographies «Variation ND» and «ShowTime» with her group, the Analysis Dance Company, at the National Opera’s Acropol Theater. The Meli Theater is situated at 87 Aristotelous & Fokaias, tel 210.822.3160. For more information on the Acropol Theater, see What’s On (left).

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