IRINI KOUROUVANI & VENETSIANA KALAMPALIKI

Irini Kourouvani is a dancer, graduate of Political Science, and champion in athletics, weightlifting, and sailing, with significant distinctions. She was born with a rare disability called arthrogryposis, and in 1992 she was awarded by the Academy of Athens for her optimistic approach to life. As a dancer, she has collaborated with groups and choreographers such as VSArts Hellas, Lathos Kinisi, Quasistellar, Ermira Goro, Lia Haraki, Sophie Bulbulyan, Manolis Saridakis, among others.

Today, she collaborates with the inclusive dance group Exis in Greece, the La Verita Dance Company in Belgium, and Compagnie DK-BEL in France. As an improvisation teacher, she has taught in schools, festivals, and dance institutions in Greece and abroad. From 2014 to 2017, she was an instructor at the dance workshop programmes Unlimited Access and iDance of Onassis Stegi.

Venetsiana Kalampaliki works in the performing arts field as a dancer and choreographer. She is a graduate of the Greek National School of Dance (2016), the School of Economics and Political Sciences (University of Athens, 2018) and holds an MFA in Visual Arts (Athens School of Fine Arts, 2022). Her diversified studies have initiated an expanded use of media in her works that focus on the body as a central component and evolve within sociopolitical contexts of accessibility and inclusion. She develops her artistic practice through interdisciplinary collaborations extended in the fields of contemporary dance, visual arts, performance and disability arts.

She has been working with Irini Kourouvani since 2018, following the creation of Siobhan Hayes’ work Cherry-Picked in Malmö, Sweden, which was presented at Skanes Danceteater and as part of the iDance #2 Inclusive Dance Convention at Onassis Stegi. They then collaborated on the pieces Re-call and Re-call (reloaded), produced by Onassis Stegi which were presented in international festivals in 2020-22 within the framework of the European programme Europe Beyond Access. Since 2021 they have been teaching contemporary dance workshops together for people with and without disabilities. They are both active members of the Arsi Network for dance and disability.