© Mohammad Ali Deeb
Artist statement
“As a female artist, activist, choreographer, performer, and dance teacher with immigrant roots living and working in Athens, I have very often formed collective and collaborative liaisons and among others have joined forces with ‘syndesmos chorou’ and ‘common platforms’, two initiatives that foster a dialogue between choreographers in Greece or exchanging ideas with artists from Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Greece, Argentina, Spain, Great Britain. My background as an artistic director of Prosxima Dance Company, has given me the opportunity to develop my artistic, organizational and managerial skills, including researching for and creating a number of choreographic works, working alongside with performers of different abilities as well as touring nationally and internationally. I have been choreographing dance performances for diverse communities, involving people who love dancing, amateurs and professional dancers. I have been teaching workshops in dance technique, choreography and improvisation in higher education, in universities, in amateur and professional dance schools or institutions, among others the Belgrade Dance Institute and the School of Fine Arts in Athens.
Collaborating with the Onassis Cultural Centre on different projects, leading workshops for dancers with and without disabilities has given me a deep understanding and experience of inclusive dance training. More specifically, though the Unlimited Access program, the iDance: Dance without discriminations project and currently the Europe Beyond Access program, I have been choreographing the work ‘the Flight’ for 25 performers for the International “Unlimited Access” Dance Festival and have been leading inclusive dance workshops. Moreover I had the opportunity for two years to work in more than 8 public schools in disadvantaged areas of the city with minority groups, including two special schools, initiating dance and movement.”
Artist Bio
Maria Koliopoulou is an independent choreographer, performer and dance teacher, living in Athens. She earned a scholarship to the Laban Centre fοr Movement and Dance and studied Fine Arts at Vacalo School of Arts & Design. She is a founding member of Prosxima Dance Company. In the recent years she has presented works commissioned by the Onassis Cultural Centre, the Athens Festival, the Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attica, Piraeus and the Islands and the International Contemporary Dance Festival of Algiers. Her choreographic works have been presented in Athens, Algiers, Budapest, Chania, Hague, Kavala, Karlstadt, Ljublana, Salzburg, Serres, Stockholm, Thessaloniki, Vienna, Prague.
She has been awarded the Jarmila Jeřábková award (2008) at the New Europe Festival in Prague and the 2nd Prize at the International Contemporary Dance Festival of Algiers (2013) in Algiers. In 2017 she was invited as a guest choreographer at the Belgrade Dance Institute and created the work ‘4 only’ for Editta Braun company. She collaborated with the Onassis
Cultural Centre on the, Unlimited Access and iDance: Dance without discriminations projects leading workshops and choreographing for dancers with and without disabilities.
She has been teaching dance -in the elementary and secondary education in private schools in Athens- ‘original play’ – in public, including special, schools through the educational programs of Onassis Cultural Centre – choreographic workshops with amateurs and professionals at the Kalamata International Dance Festival, the State School of Dance, the Athens School of Fine Arts, the Skitali Project and community dance seminars at the MCF, in Crete and Patra. Her latest work T e r r a i n premiered in April 2018 in the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, during the Off Borders Festival, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports in the frame of the State Subsidies for Dance 2018.
In November 2019, she was invited by Stop Gap Dance Company, choreographing a new work Here and Where? for Sg2. She presented the solo, C for Clay, during the Danceable#3, Holland Dance Festival, 2019. The premiere of her work Instar, on 12th March 2020, a production of Prosxima Dance Company, coincided with the lockdown measurements for the arts and not only, in Greece, amid Covid-19. It is supported by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports and Amnesty International Greece. It was re-staged at a terrace in the centre of Athens so to be accessible to all amid Covid-19 measures for only vaccinated people in closed theatrical spaces in Greece. It toured on northern Greece to Philippi Festival.
Her inclusive work Clear Midnight premiered at the Athens Epidaurus Festival, on 7th June 2021, with the support of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports and Onassis Stegi. She is currently researching the work ‘Made’ for dancer Madeleine Månsson supported by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and is involved in the Europe Beyond Access program in collaboration with Onassis Cultural Centre.