Ringside: Body Monologue [Anastasija Valsamaki]

What can the body do? This is the rhetorical question that Valsamaki brings to the stage in her solo work Body Monologue. Following the structure of a monologue, this work returns to the eloquent silence of a body that speaks through movement.

Following the structure of a monologue, this work returns to the eloquent silence of a body that speaks through movement. A silence composed of gestures, pauses, flexible forms, and unfamiliar states of the body draws our gaze. Body Monologue encompasses the fluidity of meaning that the body communicates through dance.

Concept and choreography: Anastasia Valsamaki

Co-creation and performance: Gavriela Antonopoulou

Music: Konstantinos Bakogiannis

VR production: Enya Belak

VR filming and post-production: Igor Crnković

VR sound recording: Panos Dimitriou

Anastasija Valsamaki

Whether she deals with the delicate balance between the group and the individual or devotes herself to the intimate form of a solo performance, Anastasia Valsamaki’s explorations are always guided by the idea of pure movement. For this young choreographer, dance is a way of thinking and observing, beyond any narrative intention or need for a story. She combines her career as a dancer and contemporary dance teacher with the creation of her own works.

Anastasia Valsamaki graduated from the Greek National School of Dance (KSOT). As a dancer, she performed works by Martha Graham and Anton Lachky with the Hellenic Dance Company and collaborated with several choreographers such as Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, Mina Ananiadou, Kyriaki Nasioula, Stella Fotiadi, among others.

In 2016, she debuted as a young choreographer with her work Sync, for which the Aerowaves Dance Network selected her as one of the 20 most promising emerging choreographers in Europe for 2017. In 2018, she collaborated with the Greek National Theatre as a movement consultant on the production of Peer Gynt and premiered her Body Monologue at the Arc for Dance Festival in Athens. In 2020, she created DisJoint for the 7th Young Choreographers Festival of the Onassis Foundation and received the ARTWORKS award, participating in the 3rd SNF Artist Fellowship Program.