Scoring Corporealities

Scoring Corporealities

body/word Performance Writing Residency
at Flux Laboratory Athens

1st Sharing: July - August - September 2023

multimodal, interdisciplinary research on choreographic tools that relate to different communities, places and practices, using Christos Polymenakos' body/word Performance Writing methodology. Sharings.

Christos Polymenakos, Iliana Fylla, Thalia Ditsa and Guests

In this first sharing, the core research team documents common elements and differentiated approaches between Christos Polymenakos' body/word Performance Writing methodology and the art and science of dance, on the themes of community, place, visible, subtle and silenced corporealities, bodily archives and their potentiality. The aim is to explore the process of creating multimodal choreographic scores by, with, for different communities of human and non-human, animate and non-animate entities and the increased accessibility of dance as a way of life and expression, as potentially assisted by body/word Performance Writing.

body/word Performance Writing is the methodology created and developed by Christos Polymenakos since 2009, focusing on the interdisciplinary and multimodal approach to the relationship between body and word, for use and application in creation, research and education. His creative, research and educational activities, which utilize the body/word Performance Writing methodology, have since been presented with significant results in State, private and independent institutions and communities in Greece and abroad, in the flesh, online and hybrid.

Christos is the only Greek graduate of the postgraduate Performance Writing program at the internationally acclaimed Dartington College of Arts. He completed his studies on a scholarship from the National Centre for Theatre and Dance. His methodology emerges from the field of Performance Writing, approaches the writing and reading process as physical experiences and through dance, it feeds into and develops interdisciplinary and multimodal considerations and practices. Collaborating researcher is art historian specializing in contemporary dance, Dr. Iliana Fylla and research advisor, Thalia Ditsa, choreographer, researcher, educator, MA Choreography, M.Sc. Sociology and Political Science.

An important factor of the research is the interdisciplinary group of 25 invited scientists and artists, a group with which Christos, Iliana and Thalia will have the first of three working meetings in September, as a conclusion of this first sharing.

These are recognized and emerging creative, research and education professionals from the expanded fields of dance, dramaturgy, theatre, psychology, anthropology, sociology, sound arts and studies, improvisation, medicine and veterinary medicine, lighting, design, visual arts, psychotherapy, literature, musicology, natural sciences, human resource management, cultural management, digital and community arts, civil engineering and industrial design, arts by people with disabilities and gastronomy.

Another important factor is the place of hosting/residency of the in the flesh and online research work, in the long run of the process. The building on Paleologou Mpenizelou Street -in the centre of Athens, near the Metropolis- with its natural and social environment, as well as through its past, present and future history, its collective and inter-personal memory and experience. A building which has already hosted important dance activities in the past months and is being renovated in order to create a special administrative and cultural centre dedicated to Greek-Swiss synergies. Soon, under the same roof, diplomacy will converse with the arts.

In conclusion, the work is done in person and online, incorporating possibilities, constraints and developments, for communities existing in physical, digital and hybrid spaces and the pathways in between.

The above are implemented in the fertile research framework created by Flux Laboratory Athens, with a long-standing targeted action in the relationship between dance and sciences, and the kind supporters, institutions with recognized work in the aspects of research, Kinitiras, Artistic Network of Performing Arts, The Isadora & Raymond Duncan Dance Research Center (DDRC), Dance House Lefkosia and TWIXTlab.

The first phase of the Scoring Corporealities research will continue in the coming months, while the team has already planned the next stage of the research for 2024.

core research group

Head of Research: Christos Polymenakos, MA Performance Writing, creator of the body/word Performance Writing methodology
Associate Researcher: Iliana Fylla, Phd Art History, Specialized in Contemporary Dance
Research Counselor: Thalia Ditsa, MA Choreography

Invited researchers

Adonis Galeos, Dramaturg, Director, Translator, Rhetoric Acting Educator
Anastasia S. Tsingotjidou, Associate Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Ph.D. in Neuroanatomy
Anestis Nikolos, Pastry Chef
Angelos Papadopoulos, Choreographer, Director, Performer
Antigoni Gyra, Choreographer, Artistic Director of Kinitiras Artistic Network of Performing Arts
Aristoteles – George Zogas, visual conceptual contemporary artist Charilaos Mantzavinos, Sociologist, Psychotherapist (Opou group)
Christina Thanasoula, Light Designer
Dana Papachristou, PhD, Musicologist and Sound Artist
Demy Papathanasiou, Crip Dancer/ & Choreographer, ex co-artistic director of Theatre en Corps Collectif
Dimitris Batsis, sound artist and academic researcher, PhD in Biomusic
Dimitris Champesis, PhD on Cultural Diplomacy, Program Designer and Manager
Eleni Gyra, Psychologist-Psychotherapist, MA in Humanistic Psychology, President of the Institute for Psychosocial Intervention (Opou group)
Elpida Rikou, PhD Social Psychology, anthropologist, visual artist
Estelle Papadimitriou, Dramaturg, Performance Studies Researcher, Arts Producer
Katerina El Raheb -Academic Researcher, Dance Artist, Assistant Professor in Informatics Applications in Performing Arts, Dept. of Performing and Digital Arts, University of the Peloponnese
Liana Mailli, Pediatrician, All the children of the world, ex-President of Medecins du Monde Grece, (Basal Ganglia group)
Manolis Iliakis, Architect-Spatial designer, Interior Design Pathway Leader in Vakalo College of Art and Design
Maria Maistrello, Dance and Educational Drama Teacher
Marianthi Michailidou, Choreographer, Performer, Dance Teacher, (Basal Ganglia group)
Nadi Gogoulou, Dance Artist, Dancer, Performer and Dancemaker with a video-ing practice.
Nikos Sideris, Designer / Visual Artist
Stephanos Stathopoulos, Industrial Designer
Yiannis Theakos, Sustainability Consultant and Wellbeing Counselor
Yorgos Samantas, Social Anthropologist, Sound Artist