To Be Possessed
Chara Kotsali
Solo Performance/Dance - 2023
Description
Chara Kotsali’s 2023 dance solo is a rehearsal of demonic rituals. In ‘To Be Possessed’, she summons spirits that haunt our language, our scriptures, our knowledge, our minds, and the material world itself.
By exploring women’s testimonies from different cultural contexts, Kotsali lets herself become a mouthpiece for these stories about demons, exorcism and the invocation of spirits. Doing so, she presents a moving body that is forever outside the self, a form of experience that calls into question the self-sufficiency and autonomy of the individual woman.
To Be Possessed experiments with the creation of rituals of remembrance and the stirring of the multiple voices that dwell within us. Kotsali indulges in the demonic as she attempts to animate the archive she encounters, inviting the testimonies to reveal their overwhelming yet subversive character.
A full recording of To Be Possessed can be found here.
Photos
Credits
Choreography, Concept and Performance
Chara Kotsali
Dramaturgy
Dimitra Mitropoulou
Artistic Advisor
Pericles Pravitas
Music and Sound Design
Jeph Vanger
Original Music Composition "Furiosa"
Dimitra Trypani
Lighting Design
Eliza Alexandropoulou
Production Management and Touring
Delta Pi
Commissioned & produced by Onassis Stegi
Biography
Chara Kotsali is a choreographer and performer from Athens, Greece. She graduated from the “Rallou Manou” Higher Professional School of Dance, where she currently works as a teacher of contemporary dance techniques. She also has a bachelor in Theater Studies and a master’s in Social and Cultural Anthropology, as well as training in music. Her collaborative and individual choreographic research interests revolve around the politics of sound and image, while she attempts to engage methodologies from the field of anthropology and documentary. Her practice includes writing, field recordings and DIY music composition.
As a performer, Kotsali has worked with Christos Papadopoulos, Euripides Laskaridis, Iris Karagian, Patricia Apergi and many others in Greece and abroad. She has also choreographed several works of her own and works as a movement consultant for theatre and other performing arts.
Past & Upcoming Performances
4-5/03/2023
Onassis Dance Days, Onassis Stegi - Athens, Greece - [World Premiere]
24/06/2023
Dance under the Shadow of the Rocks, Festival - Athens, Greece
10-12/07/2023
Impulstanz - Vienna, Austria
26/09/2023
Mill of Performing Arts - Larisa, Greece
10-11/11/2023
EuroScene Leipzig - Leipzig, Germany
7-21/02/2024
Theatro Theisio - Athens, Greece
25/05/2024
Primavera dei Teatri - Castrovillari, Italy
25/08/2024
Opera Estate Festival - Bassano del Grappa, Italy
07/09/2024
Hors Circuits - Tois C L Maison pour La Dance, Luxembourg
11/09/2024
ouDance Festival - Oulou, Finland
19/09/2024
VIII TANZ PLATZ - Novi Sad, Serbia
24-26/09/2024
Les Excentriques, la briqueterie - Vitre-sur Seine, Paris, France
18/10/2024
ROMAEUROPA - Rome, Italy
17/01/2025
Festival L'année Commence Avec Elles - Pole Sud CDCN, Strasbourg
10/04/2025
Want To Dance Festival - Wan Theater - Taipei, Taiwan
Traveling & Technical specifications
Number traveling: 4 persons
Minimum stage dimensions: 10m x 7m
Stage description: blackbox, alternate stage
A full technical rider can be found here.
Contact us
For further information or bookings please contact us here