Katerina Andreou | Residency at NTCH

During my upcoming residency, I will explore the question: What are we afraid of? This research grew from accompanying my mother through her final moments—an experience that made me realize I fear human cruelty more than death itself. It raised questions about fear as both an existential emotion and a social and political construct shaped by context, history, and systems of control, on both individual and collective levels.

To investigate this, I draw inspiration from horror films of the 1960s and 70s, especially folk horror. These films turn fear into a metaphor for anxieties about modernization, power, and lost innocence. Their ‘old-school’ effects create an aesthetic of visible artifice that keeps fear intense yet at a distance—transforming horror into a ritual of tension between the comic and the tragic, the fake and the real—much like my choreographic approach to performance and research.

I also feel a responsibility to open this question beyond my own background and to decolonize the idea of fear. The residency in Taipei offers a chance to meet people, listen deeply, and ask: What fears do we share? Which ones divide us? This work will be a first step towards reflecting together on what frightens us today.