SLAMMING (2024)
Three performers commit to one shared agreement: a ritualistic dance that originates from slamming. They transform mosh pit practices on stage, oscillating between rage and softness, rawness and trust, ache and pleasure, violence and tenderness, exploring these notions not as dipoles but as interconnected elements within a sui generis dance form. The audience ‘sees’ the sweat dripping, the breaths intensifying, and the hearts beating faster while the three performers are wholeheartedly “caught into a mosh”. “Slamming” seeks emotional nuances in the aggressive crowd, reconstituting a collective ritual that lurks behind an ostensible rage. It approaches crowd dances not as something to be deciphered but as a site of experience, exploring the significance of collective movement as a practice of resistance.
CREDITS
Concept, Choreography: Xenia Koghilaki
Co-creation & Performance: Irini Georgiou, Noumissa Sidibe, Xenia Koghilaki
Music Composition: Giorgos Poulios
Lighting Design: Nysos Vasilopoulos
Choreographic Assistant: Nondas Damopoulos
Dramaturgical Support: André Uerba
Artistic Advice: Elena Novakovits
Styling: Marianthi Hatzikidi
Production Manager: Olga Tsatsouli
Executive Production: Howtomakeyourlifeharder
Pictures: Pinelopi Gerasimou
PRODUCED BY
ONASSIS STEGI
PREMIERE
23.02.2024 Onassis Dance Days 2024
FURTHER DATES
24.02.2024 Onassis Dance Days 2024
25.02.2024 Onassis Dance Days 2024
22.07.2024 8:tensions New Choreographers Series ImpulsTanz Vienna
24.07.2024 8:tensions New Choreographers Series ImpulsTanz Vienna
27.09.2024 La briquetterie CDCN, Val-de-Marne France
19.10.2024 Oktoberdans Bit, Bergen Norway
20.10.2024 Oktoberdans Bit, Bergen Norway
04.07.2025 Santarcangelo Festival Italy
05.07.2025 Santarcangelo Festival Italy
06.07.2025 Santarcangelo Festival Italy
25.07.2025 Kalamata Dance Festival Greece
21.08.2025 SAAL Biennaal 2025, Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Tallinn Estonia
22.08.2025 SAAL Biennaal 2025, Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Tallinn Estonia
09.09.2025 Dancehallerne Denmark
10.09.2025 Dancehallerne Denmark
26.10.2025 Réplika Teatro, Madrid Spain
Part of the "Slamming" research has been carried out at the BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen, Norway, within the context of the Transmissions program supported by EEA Grants and the Norwegian Financial Mechanisms 2014-2021.
Slamming is supported by the Onassis Stegi “Outward Turn” Cultural Export Program
PRESS
“The audience’s gaze cannot help but be sucked in by these multi-limbed chimeras that keep on holding on to each other, softening the falls and supporting the lifts, even as they rip clothes off and slam hips, gifting us with a wondrous moment of high-octane, collaborative care.”
“A great work, realistic, raw and mysterious, which stays fascinating from beginning to end.”
Espaces Magnetiques: “Le festival Excentriques c’est du serieux” by Fabien Riviere, 1.10.24
“Xenia Koghilaki finds solidarity within brutality.”
Spring Back Magazine, article: “Xenia Koghilaki finds solidarity within brutaliy” by Léa Poiré 10 September 2024
“Brutality […] becomes caress, collision transforms into embrace. […] Koghilaki demonstrates how dance can perceive and recover the tribal component underlying contemporary practices.”
“Not yet: the cry of resistance of independent theater at Santarcangelo Festival 2025” Emanouela Zanon, July 2025
“Through the ritual of collective dance, Koghilaki explores how community functions where the individual experiences, in their own flesh, the existence of a ‘we.’”
“Il Santarcangelo Festival non ha paura”, Di Vito De Biasi, Harper’s Bazaar, July 2025
“Emotions alternated: tension, anger, brutality, but also trust, as if you were seeing a different form of intimacy being born before you, built on the chaos of tension.”
“Xenia Koghilaki finds solidarity within brutality.”
Spring Back Magazine, article: “Xenia Koghilaki finds solidarity within brutaliy” by Léa Poiré 10 September 2024
“Brutality […] becomes caress, collision transforms into embrace. […] Koghilaki demonstrates how dance can perceive and recover the tribal component underlying contemporary practices.”
“Not yet: the cry of resistance of independent theater at Santarcangelo Festival 2025” Emanouela Zanon, July 2025
“Through the ritual of collective dance, Koghilaki explores how community functions where the individual experiences, in their own flesh, the existence of a ‘we.’”
“Il Santarcangelo Festival non ha paura”, Di Vito De Biasi, Harper’s Bazaar, July 2025
“Emotions alternated: tension, anger, brutality, but also trust, as if you were seeing a different form of intimacy being born before you, built on the chaos of tension.”