Venue: KUC Travno
Duration: 40 min.
In a dance marathon that spans the historical continuum, three women regress between personal and collective history.
Focusing on the dancing body and using sound and poetry as materials, the piece grapples with the notion of progress as the most exhausting linear narrative. In the wake of a technological and social revolution that ultimately did not happen, “ΙT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE” attempts to speak of the present’s emotional history.
Three female dancers interact on stage with the past that lies ahead of us and the future we have left behind. They engage in a dance that exhausts their emotional and physical resources. It is a choreography about the ambivalent relationship of the individual and collective body with history, about the link between progress and destruction, about dances of fun, pleasure, and propaganda.
Choreographer’s note:
Broadcasting from a place in the South that has never sent a rocket into Space and grew old with slow internet, I wish to compose a messy kinetic and sonic chronology of the collective feeling created by launching into Space and simultaneously diving into cyberspace for bodies floating like space debris, for spectacle as the most durable fetish.
I draw inspiration from the dialectical relationship between continuity and discontinuity in how history is portrayed, discussed, and experienced. I experiment with both forms of linear flow (the cinematic single-cam setup, the musical ison, timeline) and discontinuity (collage, mashup, and medley).
“ΙT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE” is not another eschatology for use, nor is it another declaration of nostalgia for an exoticized past, but rather an acknowledgement that the experiment has thankfully failed. The end of the world has not yet come, and certainly not the end of history. The poetics of vertigo emerges as the most tender gesture in this hour of the fall.
Concept – Choreography – Text – Video editing: Chara Kotsali
Performance Material Co-creation: Sofia Pouchtou, Christina Skoutela, Chara Kotsali
Assistant Choreographer: Vassia Zorbali
2nd Assistant Choreographer: Clara Aguilar
Sound Design & Music: Anna Maria Rammou, Chara Kotsali
Set & Costume Design: Periklis Pravitas
Lighting Design: Eliza Alexandropoulou
Dramaturgy Consultant: Dimitra Mitropoulou
External Eye: Κοnstantina Georgelou
Line Production and Tour Production: Chara Kotsali & TooFarEast
Photos: Pinelopi Gerasimou for Onassis Stegi
Trailer: Apostolis Koutsianikoulis
Warm thanks to: Evangelia Chatzitzanou, Katerina Spyropoulou, Spiros Papadopoulos, Stathis Ioannou, Aliki Kazouri, Giorgos Kotsalis, Aspa Aroni, Dimitris Mpourzoukos, and all the ‘unknown’ and ‘renowned’ choreographers and musicians that gave us inspiration during the creative process.
The research for “IT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE” was supported by Onassis AiR and Réseau Grand Luxe. Special thanks to TROIS C-L Luxembourg,CAMPUS Paulo Cunha e Silva (Porto), Grand Studio Brussels, and L’Abri Geneva.
Web: charakotsali.com
Video / trailer:
https://vimeo.com/1080758947/0268938bdc
https://vimeo.com/1083833158/f6c1b9997a
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Photo: Pinelopi Gerasimou
