The ongoing dialogue between Christos Papadopoulos and the Romaeuropa Festival continues, as the Festival has closely followed the Greek choreographer’s trajectory in recent years, accompanying his rise on the international scene. Landless also extends his collaboration with dancer Georgios Kotsifakis, for whom the solo was created.
Rather than a portrait, the work emerges as the crossing of a threshold: the abandonment of the security derived from established experience in order to enter a new territory—one that is only apparently unfamiliar, as it is rooted in the questions that have long shaped Papadopoulos’ artistic research. Over the years, the choreographer has explored movement in its most subtle, everyday, almost imperceptible qualities, as if it always concealed a secret core.
With Landless, he returns to viewing the body as a territory yet to be deciphered, engaging modern and postmodern architecture as a field of reference. Can the body be thought of as space? Can it be organised according to a new internal logic, like an architecture that redefines functions, trajectories, and relationships?
From these questions emerges a choreographic writing that sets nature and artifice, construction and organic form in tension, imagining a movement capable of continually reinventing itself through its relationship with the surrounding space.
Christos Papadopoulos studied dance and choreography at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, theatre at the National Theatre of Greece Drama School, and political science at Panteion University in Athens. His choreographic writing places strong emphasis on the choral dimension and explores the relationship between body and space, closely linking movement and music. His works Opus and Elvedon—selected respectively for Aerowaves 2018 and 2016—have received critical acclaim in Greece and at numerous international festivals. The work for 10 performers Ion (2018) was commissioned by the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens and was widely praised by critics. The international co-production Larsen C (2021) has been presented in more than 25 venues and festivals across Europe. In 2023, Papadopoulos created Mellowing for the prestigious Dance On company and Mycelium for the Opéra National de Lyon and the Lyon Dance Biennale. He has also choreographed works for various theatre directors in Greece and, since 2003, has taught movement and improvisation at the Drama School of the Athens Conservatoire.
Georgios Kotsifakis studied dance at the Professional Dance School of Rallou Manou in Athens and Modern Theatre Dance at the Amsterdam School of the Arts. He has collaborated as a dancer with various companies and artists and has performed at numerous international festivals. In 2015, he was part of the choreographic team for the opening ceremony of the first European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan.
concept and choreography: Christos Papadopoulos, Georgios Kotsifakis
dancer: Georgios Kotsifakis
music: Jeph Vanger
lighting: Eliza Alexandropoulou
production LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura
