The Open House Festival of Contemporary Dance and Performance is back, rejuvenated and more vibrant than ever with its 14th edition. This year, the festival is illuminating the world of performance through a distinctly female lens, granting the stage to women creators from both the international and local scenes.
It will be a dynamic four-day event featuring performances, screenings, podcasts, and engaging discussions, all at the Limassol city centre.
Full programme:
Thursday 28.09
Lazaros | Performance (CY) | 22:00 (50’) (16+)
Elena Agathokleous
@ Ravens Music Hall
A musical performance, in a concert version, inspired by the Scriptures. A contemporary tragedy dedicated to Lazarus.
-You are sitting and watching. Why are you following me with your eyes? Soon you will think “but see how much he loved him, couldn’t he do something so that he would be resurrected too?” Yes, darlings of comfort, unite. Darlings of comfort, of all the world, unite!
On stage: Elena Agathokleous, Marianna Michael, Alexandros Papadopoulos | Direction, dramaturgy: Elena Agathokleous | Text: Elena Agathokleous and Giorgos Kritharas | Translation of the passage from the Bible in collaboration with Rania Iakovou | Artistic collaborator: Giorgos Kritharas | Original music: Marianna Michael | Movement advisor: Eleana Alexandrou | Costumes: Andreas Antoniou | Screenings: Konstantina Peter | Recorded choir: Androula Kafa, Nektarios Theodorou, Andreas Makris, Andreas Kentis | Production: Center of performing arts MITOS_2020
Friday 29.9
Warning for photosensitive individuals, use of strobe lights.
Performing The New
Παρουσίαση έργου σε εξέλιξη / Presentation of work in progress
- ‘’RIPE’’ | Συμμετοχική Performance (CY) | 18:00 (50’) (16+)
Annie Khoury
@ Panos Solomonidis
Free entrance
A pearl of a tear
A dance floor appears in the middle of the room
A song is sung while a wound is open
A space forming between Thinking and Surrendering; a transitional realm between layers of
consciousness, that invites the audience to give in to nonsense, sense and sensation. Almost a party -or sleepwalking on a dance floor.
Exploring the range of the personal experience throughout privacy and community, the piece
keeps shifting our perception of intimacy, comfort and connection.
Confessions like flashes, flashes of strobe lights, violent glow of polished trauma.
Ripe is the conscious choice to care for our every wound with dance. A dance to claim beyond survival or existence, joy.
Text/Choreography/Looping/Performance Annie Khoury | Music: Kalaqs
*Presentation of work in progress in the frame of Moving The New Artistic Development and Residency programme
Programme’s Mentor: Rodia Vomvolou
**The piece invites physical touch.
Electra | Animation (CZ, FR, SK) | 20:00 (25’) (16+)
Daria Kashcheeva
@ Municipal Arts Center – Papadakis Warehouses
Free Entrance
Electra rethinks her 10th birthday, mixing memories with imagination and hidden dreams. Isolated in her fantasy world full of made-up busty dolls, plastic men’s body parts, juicy strawberries and dentist tools, she builds up her own relationships with her body and sexuality. Diving deeper and deeper into her childhood memories, she experiences again rebellion against her mother and mixed feelings for her father. Electra has to go through the most painful memories to let her suppressed feelings come out. In the end, she is ready to reveal what has really happened during her 10th birthday.
Animation: Marek Jasaň, Vojtěch Kiss | Scenario, Script: Daria Kashcheeva
Set: Marek Špitálský | Castings: Zuzana Částková, Marie Verner, Zuzana Stivínová, Robert Jašków | Image: Tomáš Frkal | Special effects: Peter Košťál | Film editor: Alexander Kashcheev | Sound editor: Miroslav Chaloupka | Mix: Miroslav Chaloupka
Soundtrack: Lucas Verreman
Spirit | Movie – Exhibition (CY) | 20:30 (63’)
Eleana Alexandrou
@ Municipal Arts Center – Papadakis Warehouses
Free Entrance
SPIRIT in film, SPIRIT in object, SPIRIT in book
A video dance documentary, a parallel exhibition and a small book open the creation process behind the durational performance SPIRIT, a four-hour dance marathon streamed live to the viewers’ personal screens during the first lockdown in 2020.
The film (63’) has English subtitles. The exhibition, designed by Eva Korae and Omiros Panayides offers insight into the process behind the creation of the visual communication of the work, the rehearsals process, the SPIRIT typeface. Within the frame of the exhibition, the SPIRIT book designed by Omiros Panayides, is presented. It features texts by the team and reports on the work from 2020 including ‘backstage’ photographs.
Concept / Direction / Montage: Eleana Alexandrou | SPIRIT typeface / Graphic and book design: Omiros Panayides | Exhibition design and making: Eva Korae, Omiros Panayides | Original music: Panos Bartzis | Dramaturgy: Elena Agathokleous | Visual direction / Support system: Eva Korae | Performance: Arianna Marcoulides, Petros Konnaris, Rania Glymitsa, Marina Argyridou | Subtitles / Montage Assistance: Suzana Fiala | Light design for the performance: Aleksandar Jotovic | Production: bytheway productions | Supporters: Makers Will Make, Cyprus University of Technology – Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, VSMS Lab – Visual Sociology and Museum Studies Lab, Flashart@Rialto | Thank you to CYENS Thinker Maker Space
SPIRIT (2020) was created within the framework of the TERPSICHORI of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth of Cyprus.
The pure gold is seeping out of me | Performance (PL) | 22:00 (50’) (18+)
Renata Piotrowska-Auffret
@ Synergeio
For many women, the desire to give birth seems obvious. What if, however, this desire is impossible to fulfil, if it is restricted by legal regulations and policies?
In her work, Piotrowska-Auffret explores this area and looks at the relationship between personal and professional life. The artist relies both on her personal experience and on other women’s narratives. She examines this female yearning through a network of reproduction policies, numerous promises and attempts to exploit it.
*The performance contains nudity
Idea / choreography: Renata Piotrowska-Auffret | Performance / texts: Renata Piotrowska-Auffret and guests | Collaboration: Karolina Kraczkowska, Aleksandra Osowicz | Dramaturgy: Bojana Bauer, Renata Piotrowska-Auffret Dramaturgy consultant: Magdalena Ptasznik | Editing assistant: Michał Kurkowski | Lighting: Monika Krześniak | Visual design: Aleksandra Osowicz | Music: Camille Saint-Saens, Ferenc Liszt, Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, The Kurws | Organisers: Fundacja Burdąg, Centrum w Ruchu | Coproduction: MAAT Festival | Partners: Nowy Teatr, Wawerskie Centrum Kultury, Instytut Adama Mickiewicza, Instytut Muzyki i Tańca, Centre National de la Danse
Producer: Performat Production – Karolina Wycisk
Saturday 30.9
‘Developing and sustaining a voice as an artist’ | Podcast Premiere (CY) | 15:00 (45’)
Lia Haraki – Guy Cools
Q&A will follow
@ Municipal Arts Center – Papadakis Warehouses
Free Entrance
An enhanced podcast about Lia Haraki’s twenty-year creation journey in an interview to dramaturge Guy Cools
In this enhanced podcast, Dramaturge Guy Cools interviews Lia Haraki on her twenty-year creation journey in dance, choreography, and performance. The two of them have been close collaborators through this whole time and last year they met in Vienna to record this conversation about Lia’s works, the significance of her collaborations, the growth of her practices and her contribution to the development of dance and performance in Cyprus. The podcast is enhanced with images from Lia’s archive which she has edited herself.
*The discussion will be moderated by Alexis Vassiliou
Text / interview: Lia Ηaraki and Guy Cools | Music: Yiannis Christofides and voice Lia Haraki from the sound work VESSEL | Images: Pavlos Vrionides and amongst others Harry Antoniades, Christodoulos Panayiotou, PASHIAS, Christos Hadjichristou, Marios Hapsis. | Image Editing: Lia Haraki | Recording: Andreas Berger | Audio mixing and editing: Marcus Papageorgiou at AV Playroom | Recorded at the Liquid Loft studio in Vienna on November 22nd, 2022
Vacationists in the absurd | Performance (GR, CY) | 17:00 | (35’)
Styliana Apostolou / Polena Kolia Petersen
@ Municipal University Library
Free Entrance
Presentation within the frame of the Transnational Artistic Residency by Dance Days Chania & Dance House Lemesos
What is the relation between the absurd, the meaning of life and the tenuous structures on which we build our lives? What is the relationship between The Myth of Sisyphus and the sociopolitical reality we live in today? Can friendship give an answer to the futility that insists on screaming?
A savior is expected. With a promise of growth. Everything will be fixed. Nevertheless the heroines cannot resist this which with so much audacity and insistence keeps making its appearance: but it is collapsing!
It is 1961. There is so much abundance, so little restraint. There is only audacious hope.
It is 2023. There is so much rain, so little water. There is no hope.
It is 2046. There is no more water.
Vounaros | Performance (CY) | 18:00 (25’) (16+)
Melina Sofocleous
@ Synergeio
A place, a game, a non-place.
A burden, a refuge, a construction.
A memory, a peak, a ladder, a resource.
A physical manifestation of mental oscillation.
Pulling and unravelling from the tree of identity.
Picking the fruits of gender and heritage.
Director/Choreographer/performer: Melina Sofocleous | Sound design : Eleni Anastasiou | Light design: Yetiyetiyeti | Assistant Creative Direction: Renay Rousou , Yetiyetiyeti , Eleni Anastasiou | Production: Dance House Lemesos
Happy Happier Days | Performance (CY) | 19:00 | 60’
Arianna Economou
@ Panos Solomonides
After the solo performance Breathing Eye (2021) and the walking performance/video/installation META (2022) based on Samuel Beckett’s FILM, Arianna Economou continues her research inspired here by his play “Happy Days”, in a journey of life, explorations, and meaning.
In HAPPY HAPPIER DAYS the creator shares with the audience, looking at the past, present and future: what has been, what could be, and seeking what could be defined as the happiest days. From this mature artistic position she finds herself in an ongoing dialogue with the text, where she inevitably confronts her choices as an active female artist in Cyprus from her early career to the present, as well as personal memories or thoughts.
Idea / Direction / Texts/ Music/ Performance : Arianna Economou |Dramaturgy, Collaborating Artist : Elena Agathocleous | Movement Advisor : Petros Konnaris | Sound Design: YIannis Christofides | Video in performance : “seeds” by Peter Hulton | Technical Support : Yiangos Hadjiyiannis | Production : Echo Arts 2023
MOS | Performance (GR) | 20:30 (45’) (8+)
Ioanna Paraskevopoulou
@ Rialto Theatre
Two performers enter into discourse with a disparate series of images, and seek to impart their own transcription in space. The body and (micro-)movements co-exist with curious objects and materials to act as a means of sound production. The material is intensified, exploded, paused, repeated, and distorted in order to bolster the sound experience.
Within the scenic formulation, individual pieces of information are teased out of the reused materials, thus inviting audience members to generate new connections and interrelations. They find themselves successively transformed into listeners of a makeshift and heterogeneous soundtrack that unfolds before them. The performers become the intermediaries between archive and audience, offering up their own personal takes, composing their own sound adaptation of a non-linear cinematic script,and choosing, at the end of the day, what could possibly be heard. “MOS” is a scenic game operating in among the conspicuous and hidden relations that exist between movement, sound, and image, amplifying narratives that arise out of the mutual interplay and co-existence of seemingly incongruous archival sources, thus bringing visibility to elements that cannot easily be seen, or heard.
* The word/acronym “mos” has more than 20 definitions. Here are just a selection: make optical splices / microphone off stage / microphone out of service / minus optical signal / minus optical stripe / minus optical sound / missing of sound / mit ohne stimme / mit outsprechen / mixer out smoking / motion on screen / motor only shot / motor only sync / music on side / muted on screen / muted on sound / muted optical stripe.
Concept & Choreography: Ioanna Paraskevopoulou | Performance: Georgios Kotsifakis, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou | Audio Technical Support & Live Sound Design: Danis Chatzivasilakis | Dramaturgy: Elena Novakovits | Lighting Design: Eliza Alexandropoulou | Tour Lighting Design: Eliza Alexandropoulou, Tzanos Mazis | Video Engineer: Konstantinos Asimakopoulos | Set & Costume | Design: Ioanna Paraskevopoulou | Video Editing: Ioanna Paraskevopoulou | Wooden Constructions: | Miltos Athanasiou | Poster Design: Bois Futuri | Photography: Pinelopi Gerasimou | Production Management: Ioanna Paraskevopoulou | Tour Management: Cultόpια & Ioanna Paraskevopoulou
Tour Coordinator: Christina Liata (Onassis STEGI)
Saturday 01.10
Dear Festival and Friends | Αfterthoughts | Programme’s Working Group
17:00 (60’)
@ Municipal Arts Center – Papadakis Warehouses
Free Entrance
The context programme “Dear festival and friends…” curated and facilitated by Rodia Vomvolou (dance dramaturg, researcher) and Betina Panagiotara (dance theorist, dramaturg), proposes the activation of critical thinking and writing around Open House festival and its performances. Starting from the festival’s curatorial choice of hosting works by artists who identify as women, and using letter writing as a basic working method, the programme aims to reflect critically on the performances and to provide a different kind of contextualization to the festival and its participants. How can we think, discuss and write critically together using the practice of letter writing as a tool to process the reactions/thoughts that the works trigger and how does the curatorial gaze of the festival relate to that of the spectators?
Performing The New
- μελωδία ΙΙ / melody II | Installation (CY)
Artemis Evlogimenou
@ Synergeio
Free Entrance
Food is a source of nutrition.
Food is political.
Food is an ecological issue.
In this work, I am exploring our rhythm of life versus that of nature; how our consumption of food affects our perspective of reality and our notion of death and survival. How all this, has an impact on our idea of time.
We weave stories to understand the truth.
We weave stories to sell the truth.
We weave stories to hide the truth.
Presentation of work in progress in the frame of Moving The New Artistic Development and Residency programme
Programme’s Mentor: Rodia Vomvolou
* The audience can enter and exit the space any time.
Atlas da Boca | Performance (PT, BR) | 1.10 | 21:00 (50’) (16+)
Gaya de Medeiros
@ Xidadiko
‘I spent my adolescence very quietly. I lived countless days reading people mainly, their
“non-words’ ‘. A “gesture word”, a “gaze word”, a “breath word”… I spend my life trying
to read the ways our thinking carves the body. I think the piece settles here.“
Gaya de Medeiros
Atlas da Boca explores two trans bodies through the mouth. As a symbol, the mouth becomes the interface between the public and the private, between the erotic and the political, between silence and the word that lasts. Questioning the “words-gestures”, this piece delves into the moments in which the mouth hardens, letting the words come out roaring.
*The performance contains nudity
Direction and production | Gaya de Medeiros | Co-creation and Performance | Ary Zara, Gaya de Medeiros | Provocation, conception and design of “Brief Atlas of the Mouth : João Emediato | Video : Ary Zara | Light design : André de Campos | Stage director : Ricardo Pimentel | Sound operation : Milton Estevam | Translation and subtitles : Joana Frazão | Management : Irreal
Closing Party
@ Mason
Tunes by ALYSIDEZ
Ticket information:
Festival Cards: €30
Available @ SoldOut Tickets
*Festival cards do not include the MOS performance at Rialto Theatre
Tickets : €8 / €6
Available @ SoldOut Tickets
At the entrance upon availability
For the performance, Mos tickets will be available at www.rialto.com.cy and at the box office.