El Banquete

Four dancers and a musician interact with various stage materials, composing a colourful and physical collage. Taken from Plato’s “Symposium” and the ancient discussion of love, the characters “dance love”, starting from, but eventually going beyond, its classical representations. Exploring the question: “What is love?”, they develop a choreographic dialogue with irony and provocative proximity, translating into moving images the eulogy Plato weaves for love, ultimately opening up an alternative reading of the ancient text.

“El Banquete” (“The Banquet” in Spanish) is a composition on the borders of dance, visual installation and performance, in which objects, materials, colours, textures and smells paint the traces that a performance leaves behind.

This performance is an adaptation of the work “Symposium” presented last March at the Athens Concert Hall by Iro Vassalou and Snap Dance Company.

After each performance, there will be a discussion between the group and the audience.

Iro Vassalou is a dancer, choreographer and dramatist. Her choreographies have been hosted in Greek and European festivals: the 7th Festival of Young Choreographers at the Stegi, Megaron Underground (Megaron Music Hall, 2024), 8th You Better Move (Dansmakers, Amsterdam), among others. Since 2020, she has been collaborating as a dramaturg with The Guest Project and Gesamt Atelier, while developing her personal choreographic and educational work. In her latest choreographic work, she collaborated with the Megaron Music Hall as co-producer.

Lula Amir is a dancer, choreographer and educator. She has worked with well-known choreographers and directors in Spain (Sergio Martínez Vila, Chevi Muraday…). Her latest group choreographic work, “Libidinal”, was presented as a co-production on the platform Factoría Echegaray Theatre. Her solos have travelled to various Spanish festivals (Autóctonxs Festival, Femkultur Festival Pamplona, MAF Malaga). In collaboration with choreographer Iro Vassalou, she has danced at the Athens Concert Hall (“Symposium” 2023) and at the Casting Theatre (“Simio”, 2017). She has also worked as a choreographer and dancer at the GEN stage in Uruguay and La vitrina de Belgrado in Argentina.

Rallou Karella is a graduate of the Higher Professional School of Dance “AKTINA”. She has collaborated with the National Theatre (“Secret Engagements”), the Athens and Epidaurus Festival (“Democracy in America”), the National Gallery (“Anastixis”), the Music in Motion Festival (“Cycle of Songs”), the cultural group Media dell’Arte (Sikinos Festivals), the Creo dance group (“Voreades”). Her choreographic works have been presented at the Athens Video Dance Festival and the Solus Festival.

The dancer Konstantinos Cheretis has collaborated with the Siamese Dance Company and the choreographers Koen Augustineen and Rosalba Torres (Belgium) in the production “Lamenta”, which was presented at the Athens Festival, the Avignon Dance Festival, the La Maillon Theatre in Strasbourg, the La Villette Theatre (Paris). He is a member of the SNAP Dance Company. he has also worked with Georgia Paizi, Sharon Fridman (as part of the Kalamata Festival), Stella Fotiadis, among others.

Aliki Leftherioti (aka Saber Rider) is a producer, composer, performer & DJ. She focuses on plunderphonics, free improvisation and electroacoustic composition. She regularly composes, creates and performs live for visual and dance/performance artists, works as a piano accompanist for ballet, presents radio shows, plays keyboards in various bands and is always mysteriously busy.