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“We leave with the feeling that we have walked a long path in good company, sharing something silent but profound: a minimalist, energetic and electric piece”.

Marguerite Papazoglou, unfauteuilpourlorchestre.com

ION demonstrates why the European dance considers Christos Papadopoulos a rising star. His artistic, minimalist and poetic universe is a place the audience can live in. Here is a show that focuses on the microphysics of movement, on the volume of detail that can be derived from a kinetic pattern that allows the eye to travel through the unlimited field of human relations.

On stage we see a living system of ten dancers, who click and coordinate, attract and reject each other, tracing orbits that follow the impulses of nature. Because they are all ions electrically charged. The flight of the birds, the coordination of the fireflies... a series of microphenomena that make up the world of nature become the starting point for Christos Papadopoulos' kinetic research.

However, the choreographer does not just represent these charming coincidences. With his already characteristic minimalist language, Papadopoulos searches for the algorithm behind the coordination function. A living system of ten dancers puts our observation capacity to the test with imperceptible changes and silent transitions to reveal the fragility of the human relationships that validate the rhythm of life, the natural order of things.

It could be said that the show tends to work by association, highlighting the elements that transcend form, the mechanism of choreography and the rigour of the system. What fascinates the choreographer is exploring how the different elements are connected to create a unique cosmos. Here, the appeal of coordination lies in the brevity of the phenomenon, its fugacity, the impression of randomness and the expectation of recurrence.

ION is a multi-sensorial experiment, which does not exhaust itself in easy mechanics trying to attract attention. The choreography aims to bring to the forefront the minimum, the ecstatic serenity, like that crack through which light enters before the sky reveals all its splendour. Papadopoulos focuses on the repetition of kinetic motifs, on the clarity of the stage space defined by lighting and action. The artist relies on the key elements that make up his work: rhythm, movement, place and time. The way he weaves each action allows us to gradually discover the interaction of movement with the rest of the elements, as well as the light that shows the swaying of the bodies and the effect of the music on the sound environment, which not only guides the piece, but also dialogues with the choreography.

Practical information

• Naves del Español at the Matadero Sala Fernando Arrabal - Nave 11
• 20 and 21 November at 20:00
  22 November at 19:00

Full information on the show Ticket sales

Video

What the critics have said...

• “It is clear that the quality and authenticity of Christos Papadopoulos' work is causing a great stir. Quickly embraced by European co-production networks and rightly acclaimed by critics, it is a true jewel of contemporary Greek dance. Just as the effect his work has on the audience is captivating. In addition to his talent and his luck, he has surrounded himself with a team of artists who together become stronger. Each performer displays their talent for the common good, thus strengthening their own career and that of the group (...) We leave with the feeling that we have walked a long path in good company, sharing something silent but profound: a minimalist, energetic and electric piece”. Marguerite Papazoglou, unfauteuilpourlorchestre.com
• “No dancer attracts more attention than others: each one claims the energy that crackles in every centimetre, blends in with their individuality (especially, with their distinctive physical traits), but shares it repeatedly with the others, passing the energy from one to another in fits, as if trying to recharge everyone's energy levels so that all maintain a constant and identical flow. We no longer have ten dancers in front of us, but a calmly powerful seaweed that runs with the waves; a captivating plant whose firm and fascinating undulation encourages us to meditate or daydream.
  
  Therefore, we are fully in another place, in a different space-time, floating irresistibly thanks to the remarkable performance of the dance company. Remarkable not only for its physiological capacity to produce so many visual effects with microscopic gestures, but even more for its vibratory quality as a group of dancers, an image that conveys all its meaning ”. Bachtrack
• “It begins with darkness crossed by a beam of light, like a crack, a horizontal twilight where furtive silhouettes appear and disappear. A thud wraps around this mysterious back and forth journey. Little by little, the bodies, whose runs have given way to precise but evanescent steps that slide, are revealed. Ten dancers inhabit ION, the third choreographic work by Christos Papadopoulos. Men and women are all dressed alike, with dark trousers and their chests uncovered, as if they were some sort of raw, non-sexual data of their diverse equality; ten unique individuals who form a heterogeneous but united whole. The individual and the group, the apparent chaos and the organisation of movement: these are the ingredients of this extraordinary moment, formed by a disturbing undulation and a perpetual movement.
  
  Organic vibration
  Organic as the impressive murmurs of the birds that inspire it, this piece offers its audience the vast world of imagination, open through contemplation, while questioning what is it that make disparate beings form a community. It even includes the own material of dance, its rules, the freedoms it allows, the tracks the performers can trace and the space occupied by different personalities in it.
  
  We may be tempted to analyse ION in terms of the dancer and their position within the whole, but what Christos Papadopoulos offers - especially, even - deserves an analysis in terms of the raw and sensitive poetry with which he injects it and the crazy precision that runs through it, while using new spaces of perception. Coti K's music, electro-textured with layers and loops, fits perfectly with the highly modelled movements, their economy, their tension and the vibration of their infinitesimal variations and fascinating connections”. ”. Mari Baudet, La Libre Belgique