I wanted to share a short video today, an excerpt taken from a piece called Nowhere  by Greek experimental theatre director, choreographer and visual artist Dimitris Papaioannou, (who incidentally was the creative director for the Athens Olympics in 2004). Nowhere is dedicated to Pina Bausch and was created to inaugurate the new main stage at the Greek National Theatre.

To quote the theatre’s website:

Nowhere is a work about the physical space of the theatrical stage. Constantly changing and defined by the men and women that inhabit it, it can be countless different places while designed to be nowhere at all.

The scene I’m sharing contains nudity, so be warned, but the reason it caught my attention will be obvious when you watch it.  Simply stunning.

.

Known as the body mechanic system, it was used by Akram Khan in his piece Dust, part of a large work called Lest We Forget for the English National Ballet. Khan credited Papaioannou in the programme for the idea:

I have a feeling it might be making an appearance in some of my students’ work, minus the nudity I hope, given their reaction to it.