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XENIA KOGHILAKI

Xenia Koghilaki works in the field of performing arts as a dancer and choreographer. She puts the body in the centre of her research interest, while her practice engages with issues of re-examining the moving body’s aesthetic, political and social aspects.

She is a graduate of the Greek National School of Dance, the Architecture Department of the University of Patras and she holds an MA in “Solo/Dance/Authorship” from the University of the Arts Berlin (HZT Berlin).

Her work has been presented in Onassis Dance Days (“Slamming” / 2024, “Bang Bang Bodies” / 2023), Sophiensaele (“KOPANIMA” / 2024) and Tanztage Berlin (“Bang Bang Bodies / 2023), Kommuna Warsawa, Studio ALTA (collaborative piece “Nudes and Conspiracies”), Onassis New Choreographers Festival (collaborative work “Besuch”), the Arc for Dance Festival among others.

As a dancer, she has collaborated with Kat Válastur for the works “Strong-Born,” “Diana, Even,” “The FarNear”,  André Uerba, Armin Hokmi, the Hellenic Dance Company, among others.

Her research work has been supported by Dis-Tanz-Solo Des Dachverband Tanz Deutschland, Residenzförderung of Fonds Darstellende Kunste (in collaboration with HAU-Berlin), Goethe Institute Berlin and the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Xenia has been a danceWEB scholarship recipient at the ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival in 2021, she was awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS in 2022 and she is an Onassis AiR Fellow for 2023/24.

KOPANIMA

XENIA KOGHILAKI [DE,GR] - KOPANIMA - November 23, 2024 - Backslash festival, Gessnerallee Zurich -
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  • Backslash festival, Gessnerallee Zurich
  • November 23, 2024

Photo credits: Mayra Wallraff

KOPANIMA

Following Bang Bang Bodies, which premiered as part of Tanztage Berlin 2023, and Slamming produced by Onassis Stegi, KOPANIMA is the third part of an ongoing performance series in which Xenia Koghilaki uses dance and choreography to explore the relationship between the subcultural practices of moshing and those of collective discharge in the crowd.

In her new group work Xenia Koghilaki focuses on the forces, physical dynamics and embodied energies between collectively moving bodies. KOPANIMA transforms the movements and gestures from the mosh-pit into a staged echo, raising questions about physicality, vulnerability, and resistance – and at the same time reveals gestures of trust and solidarity. In this performance the concert crowd stands for a place of collective struggle and a ritualized form of social cooperation. The audience is immersed in an ambivalent feeling of togetherness and sensory stimulation.

Premiere: 8 May 2024, Sophiensaele Berlin

Credits
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Concept, choreography, performance: Xenia Koghilaki
Co-creation / Performance: Noumissa Sidibé, Irini Georgiou, Julia Plawgo
Music composition: Ernesto Carcamo Cavazos
Light design: Vito Walter
Dramaturgical support: André Uerba
Choreographic assistant: Nondas Damopoulos
Production management: Marina Agathangelidou
A production by Xenia Koghilaki in co-production with Onassis Stegi and Sophiensæle. Funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin

Duration: 50 min

Photo credits: Pinelopi Gerasimou

Slamming

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.

Premiere: February 2024, Onassis Dance Days, Athens

Credits
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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

Supported by the Onassis Stegi “Outward Turn” Cultural Export Program.

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.

Duration: 32 min

Photo credits: Mayra Wallraff

Bang Bang Bodies

Bang Bang Bodies embarks on a choreographic journey into the collective imaginary. What brings bodies together? Where can the experience of togetherness be situated? Xenia Koghilaki focuses on embodied “discharge” (or physical release) associated with different types of crowds – from the metal and punk scene to meditative rituals and instances of mass protests. The work resituates the practice of headbanging, placing it on stage as an endless chain of reciprocity and exchange of space and time but also of sweat and breathings, of historical, cultural, and political particles between bodies, that is never static. On the contrary, it is always in a fluid and turbulent moving. Two female performers explore the effects of exhaustion through repetition bringing to spotlight how movement can bring out personal and cultural memories but also ideas of how we perceive our bodies in relation to others and how we imagine ourselves in relation to the world.

Official Premiere: 5 & 6 January 2023, Tanztage Berlin 2023 at Sophiensaele

Credits
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Concept, Choreography, Performance: Xenia Koghilaki
Co-creation & Performance: Luisa Fernanda Alfonso
Sound Design: Ernesto Cárcamo Cavazos
Lighting Design: Vito Walter
Outside Eye: André Uerba
Μentor: Kat Válastur
Tutoring: Janez Janša, Sandra Noeth
Physical Training: Nodas Damopoulos for Athens
Photo credits: Mayra Wallraff 

Created in Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin (HZT) with the support of the Studienabschluss-Stipendium für internationale Studierende at UDK in the frame of MA SODA Final Works at Uferstudios Berlin / HZT, 26 & 27 June 2021

Duration: 40 min