KIDFdisability-inclusion Filiatra
21.07 | 11:30-13:30 (2 hours)
Panos & Elias Eliopoulos Museum, Filiatra
IRINI KOUROUVANI & VENETSIANA KALAMPALIKI
DANCE WORKSHOP FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
The contemporary dance workshop invites people with disabilities to participate in a group experience of movement, expression, and imagination. Based on the principles of improvisation, it creates space for the body to move freely, encounter other bodies, and connect with rhythm, the floor, gravity, music, silence, and the live presence of the group.
The workshop facilitators, Irini Kourouvani and Venetsiana Kalampaliki, integrate images and games into the practice, activating the imagination and encouraging creative participation. Through individual and collective compositions, we explore various speeds, dynamics, qualities, and levels of movement. We study pauses, anticipation, and transitions into movement, seeking shared rhythms, common starts, and endings.
At the same time, we focus on the connection between voice and body, discovering forms of expression that emerge through breath, sound, and vibration.
The workshop emphasizes group collaboration, bodily awareness in space, and the experience of time through movement. We explore rhythms, pauses, and transitions, experimenting with shifts in intensity and duration, allowing compositions to emerge organically through the process of play and observation.
INFORMATION & REGISTRATION:
> kidf@kalamatadancefestival.gr / info@cvf.gr & (+30) 27210 27451
> Registration open until all places are filled.
Irini Kourouvani is a dancer, a graduate of the Department of Political Science at the University of Athens, and a champion in athletics, weightlifting, and sailing, with significant distinctions. She was born with a rare disability of the lower limbs called arthrogryposis and, in 1992, received an award from the Academy of Athens for her optimistic approach to life despite the challenges of her disability.
As a dancer, she has collaborated with companies and choreographers such as VSArts Hellas, Lathos Kinisi, Quasistellar, Ermira Goro, Lia Charaki, Sophie Bulbulyan, Manolis Saridakis, and others. Currently, she works with the inclusive dance group Ison in Greece, La Verita Dance Company in Belgium, and Compagnie DK-BEL in France.
As a teacher of improvisation, she has taught in schools, festivals, and dance schools both in Greece and abroad, including the Kalamata Dance Festival and the Akropoditi Dance Festival. From 2014 to 2017, she taught in the dance workshop programs Unlimited Access and iDance at the Onassis Foundation’s Stegi. Since 2015, she has collaborated with the Olympic Truce as part of the school program titled Respecting Diversity. This is her fifth consecutive year working with the Kalamata Dance Festival.
Venetsiana Kalampaliki is a dancer and choreographer, a graduate of the Greek National School of Dance (2016), the Department of Political Science at the University of Athens (2018), and the Master’s Program in Fine Arts (MFA) at the Athens School of Fine Arts. Her works have been presented at the Holland Dance Festival, the Kalamata Dance Festival, the Oriente Occidente Dance Festival, Skånes Dansteater, Stegi (ONC7 & ONC8), Kampnagel, and the Hauptsache Frei Festival in Hamburg.
She has participated in international residencies at K3 | Tanzplan Hamburg (2021–22), NAVE in Chile (2022), and Seoul Dance Centre in South Korea (2023). She has collaborated with, among others, Rimini Protokoll, Anna Konjensky, Jenny Beyer, Lenio Kaklea, Iris Karayan, Konstantinos Rigos, and Romeo Castellucci.
She received the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS in 2022–23 and was awarded the DanceWEB scholarship in 2023.
Irini Kourouvani and Venetsiana Kalampaliki have been working together since 2018, following the creation of Siobhan Hayes’ short work Cherry-Picked in Malmö, Sweden, which was presented at Skånes Danceteater and at Onassis Stegi as part of the iDance #2 Inclusive Dance Convention. They later collaborated on the pieces Re-call and Re-call (reloaded), produced by Onassis Stegi within the framework of the European program Europe Beyond Access, which were presented at international festivals between 2020 and 2022. Since 2021, they have been co-teaching contemporary dance workshops for people with and without disabilities.