The Travels of the Onassis Stegi Touring Program | May – June 2025

The Moving Balkans Contemporary Dance Platform in Ljubljana is one of the most important stops of the Onassis Stegi Touring Program. For the very first time, all Balkan countries participated and collaborated in a joint artistic event, showcasing the most timely and powerful developments contemporary dance has to offer. On May 10 and 11, two prominent Greek choreographers took part with their projects: Christiana Kosiari participated with “RUNWAY,” following its successful presentation at the “Under The Radar” Festival in New York; and Patricia Apergi participated with “The House of Trouble.” The energy stemming from an unconventional catwalk and a tribute party devoted to humanity flooded one of the largest dance platforms in the Balkans.

Christiana Kosiari’s solo choreography “RUNWAY” premiered at Onassis Dance Days 2024 in February 2024. “The House of Trouble” was first presented by Patricia Apergi and her team Aerites on the Onassis Main Stage in May 2023.

Elena Antoniou travels to Catanzaro, Italy, to present her work “LANDSCAPE” at the Performing festival hosted by the Accademia di Belle Arti di Catanzaro on May 25. The choreographer we met at the Onassis Main Stage in March 2023 during the Onassis Dance Days 2023, continues her international tour, using her work to reflect, as a female creator, on the interaction with 21st-century patriarchal cultures.

The latest choreographic piece by Foteini Stamatelopoulou, “NEAR MISSES,” will be presented on May 27 at the SPRING Performing Arts Festival, one of the Netherlands’ most important contemporary performance arts festivals. SPRING is renowned for its daring and multifacted program, often focusing on questions of cultural identity and social justice, creating a dynamic artistic space for creators and audiences alike.

With “NEAR MISSES” in her luggage, Foteini Stamatelopoulou will continue from Utrecht to Lille, France, on June 19 to participate in the 23rd Latitudes Contemporaines festival, alongside other distinguished dance artists and professionals.

A few days after its successful premiere at the Onassis Main Stage, “My Fierce Ignorant Step” by Christos Papadopoulos, recipient of the Rose International Dance Prize, sets off its international tour, spreading its message of optimism and euphoria of living around the globe. The first stop of the tour is Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and One Dance Week, one of the biggest dance festivals in the Balkans, on May 30. From there on, Christos Papadopoulos travels to the Festival de Marseille for two more performances, on June 27 and 28.

In the choreographer’s own words: “This work is my attempt to revisit that feeling that anything is possible. To find it again. And with it, to regain that strength, that optimism, and that sense of ‘together.’ I have to remind myself that hoping is already an act of resistance and that such courage was neither naïve nor quaint at all. It was true. And it still is.”

A work that pushes the boundaries between performance, dance, and visual arts, “Lapis Lazuli” by Euripides Laskaridis continues its European tour with two new stops: On June 6, it will be presented at the Maribor Theatre Festival, Slovenia’s most important theater festival. On June 15 and 16, it will be staged at the Campania Theatre Festival in Naples, one of Italy’s most vibrant performing arts institutions, which is renowned for the experimentation of its participants with stage language, as well as its political imprint.

“Lapis Lazuli,” which we first encountered at the Onassis Main Stage in April 2024, continues to captivate with its unique poetics and surreal universe.