PIE IN THE SKY Comes to the GNO Alternative Stage for Three Performances

Pie in the Sky lands on the GNO Alternative Stage at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center for only three performances and marks the beginning of a unique artistic experience that will captivate audiences of all ages.

A contemporary dance work, Pie in the Sky is a duet that will be performed onstage by the choreographer and dancer Georgia Vardarou along with her daughter Myrto Sanchis Vardarou. The set has been designed by Eleni Haimenedaki and the lighting by Salva Sanchis. The work will serve as the starting point for an original and fun movement workshop for children, mothers, and fathers, starting right after the end of the performance. 

 The workshop participants will be encouraged to improvise their own dance duets, using contemporary dance techniques proposed by the dancers, making them the protagonists. They will be urged to view movement as a way to express themselves, communicate, and externalise their feelings, and as a way to activate hope and strength. At the same time, through the participatory process, they will become familiar with the process of building a performance of this genre.

Pie in the Sky was created by Georgia Vardarou and her daughter on the occasion of the curfew imposed during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Georgia Vardarou notes: “Confined, between our living room and a small cultural centre in the nearby village, we began to create and dance, letting our imagination wander across the universe. Dark days would alternate with days full of starlight and the ceilings would brim with planets and distant stars. From time to time the hope of a possible perfect world would be born up there. Endless, innermost hopes for the future. Yet, maybe we became immobilised looking at the foregone light of these celestial entities. By creating and dancing, the stage world activates us once again with doses of hope and strength.”

Georgia Vardarou graduated from the National School of Dance (KSOT) in Greece, and then from the contemporary dance school P.A.R.T.S. in Belgium, where she studied on a scholarship from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation (IKY). As a dancer, she has worked with Salva Sanchis, Marc Vanrunxt, Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt, Lance Gries, Albert Quesada, Quim Bigas and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker/Rosas dance company. Her main focus as a choreographer has been on developing her personal approach to movement. She has created the works Hardcore Research on Dance, Phenomena, New Narratives and Why should it be more desirable for green fire balls to exist than not, which have been presented in various venues, such as Dance Umbrella (London), ImpulsTanz (Vienna), Julidans (Amsterdam), Athens Epidaurus Festival, Sâlmon Festival (Barcelona), Springdance (Utrecht), Kaaistudio’s (Brussels), STUK (Leuven), Schowburg (Amsterdam), Les Brigittines (Brussels) etc. She lived in Brussels for thirteen years. In 2017 she moved to Barcelona. Her work has been produced by Kunst/Werk.

GNO LEARNING & PARTICIPATION

Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center

Saturday 25 & Sunday 26 May 2024

Starts at 11.00 & 17.00 on 25/5, 11.00 on 26/5

CREATIVE TEAM

Choreographers, dancers, workshop leaders: Georgia Vardarou (choreographer, dancer), Myrto Sanchis Vardarou

Set designer, technical support: Eleni Haidemenaki

Lighting designer: Salva Sanchis 

Text excerpt: Dava Sobel, The Planets

Production: Kunst/Werk (BE)

Co-producers: APDC (Fem Dansa), Diputació Barcelona i Generalitat de Catalunya

To post a comment, you must register and login.