Transforming Me

MIRfestival 2014  | 30/11-1/12 2014 | Rabbithole Art and Performance Space.

“Clever text, full of humour, contemporary, light but not frivolous […] Medie Megas tricks us, in a beautifully poetic and for some, political way, into standing in front of the mirror of our shadow.”

Panagiotis Logginidis | review for parallaximag.gr |  25.07.15

“The autobiographical offering of the choreographer-performer is not concentrating on sensational virtuosity, but on the manipulation of a flexible and accessible form as if it were an event being ‘constructed’ in the moment of its presentation. Medie Megas’ bilingual solo, Transforming Me, begins from this exact premise, that the figure facing the audience is visible and subject to observation just as in the real, off stage world.”

Anastasio Koukoutas | review for dancepress.gr | 12.12.14

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Transforming Me, a bilingual solo is a meditation on personal and social transformation. The improvisational ‘transformation’ dance form upon which the piece is based, models the shifts through familiar into unfamiliar, through repetition and tipping points, through fear and hope.

Medie Megas grew up in a bilingual context, constantly shifting between different cultural forms, behaviours and expectations. In the performance she addresses the audience directly and draws it into a process of transformation, which passes through the personal and opens up into broader concepts of the social sphere. Through her dance, text and song, the choreographer and performer asks the questions ‘how does personal transformation relate to social transformation and what role do perception, consciousness and intention play in this process?’ and ‘How does one imagine and create a different reality?’

Transformation is not a sudden change; it emerges slowly as we allow our bodies to inhabit difference. And yet our lives are full of sudden external shifts and multiple stimuli, in the face of which one needs to perform a uniquely personal balancing act.

The performance premiered at MIR festival 2014 in Athens and it was co-produced by the European network Open Latitudes. Since then it has travelled to the Performance Festival at the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2015, to the Kalamata International Festival 2015, and to Danae Festival, Milan, Italy 2015.

Program text | Medie Megas and Kate Adams

Credits: 

Choreography: Medie Megas

Dramaturgy: Kate Adams

Original music: Chrysanthos Christodoulou

Set design: Vasilis Gerodimos

Lighting design: Tasos Paleoroutas

Processing of program image: Sakis Stritsidis / Front

Technical assistant: Marilou Andrikou

Production Medie Megas
/// Co-production Open Latitudes (3) European Network (Latitudes Contemporaines (FR) Vooruit (BE) – L’Arsenic (CH) – Body/Mind (PL) – Teatro delle Moire (IT) – Sin Arts Culture (HU) – Le Phénix (FR) – MIR Festival (GR) – Materiais Diversos (PT) ) supported by the European Union.

With the support of MIRfestival and Christiana Galanopoulou

Reviews (greek):

By Anastasio Koukoutas / dancepress.gr

By Panagiotis Logginidis / parallaximag.gr

 

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