31th Kalamata Dance Festival 2025

Artistic note

The 31st Kalamata International Dance Festival celebrates the continuous and thrilling journey of a full thirty years (1995–2025). It is an institution that has helped shape contemporary dance in Greece, placed Kalamata on the international map of the contemporary arts scene, and offered audiences magical moments of connection with contemporary choreographic creation. This remarkable trajectory owes its vitality and longevity to the foundations on which it was built: the consistent support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Kalamata, and the Region of Peloponnese, as well as to the inspired work of the three women who led the Festival throughout these thirty years — Vicky Maragopoulou (1995–2015), Katerina Kasioumi (2016–2017) and Linda Kapetanea (2018–2024).

The Festival belongs to all those who have believed in it, supported it, loved it and contributed their knowledge, artistry and dedication to its creation, as well as to the audience that embraced it and returns to it year after year.

This year’s anniversary edition draws inspiration both from the Festival’s thirty-year history and from the history being written at this very moment. Attuned to the tremors of our time, it presents international and Greek choreographers who, through their distinctive artistic voices, leave their personal imprint while engaging with fundamental themes such as humanity, nature, ritual and community.

At the heart of this year’s Festival lies dance that explores the human condition and cultivates bridges of understanding and solidarity. Its pulse unfolds through the succession of works, gradually forming a collective body that carries us from one artist’s world to another, in a shared experience of reconnection.

The movement from the individual to the collective, from the personal to the universal, from drama to humour, from darkness to light seeks to expand time itself, continually nourishing dialogue. The Festival is a meeting place between art and society, aiming both to present innovative artistic creations and to build bridges between the art of dance and communities, highlighting dance as a vital means of expression for all.

Within this framework, a mosaic of diverse choreographic voices has been created: works that ingeniously weave movement through space and time, alongside works in which dance enters into dialogue with music, the visual arts, theatre, photography and cinema, forming a unified artistic score.

A rich programme of performances, educational activities and parallel events unfolds across theatre stages as well as at various locations throughout the city and the wider region of the Peloponnese, creating a network of routes that carries the pulse of the Festival. This year’s programme also includes special projects and commissions, made possible thanks to funding from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture for the celebration of the Festival’s 30th anniversary.

At the 31st Kalamata International Dance Festival, we celebrate together the freedom of expression through the movement of the body and the power of dance to transcend cultural and geographical boundaries — and to make us more human.

Tzeni Argyriou
Artistic Director

Kalamata International Dance Festival

Main program

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