Christos Papadopoulos (Greece) – MY FIERCE IGNORANT STEP
Duration: 60 min.
Recommended age: 12+
A performance about the euphoria of being alive. Ten dancers create an ecstatic soundscape and the choreography emerging from it. Memories and listens, voices and bodies, all resonate like musical instruments, gradually building toward a shared exhilaration.
The new work by the minimalist Greek choreographer, who already took part in the festival in 2024, explores how movement becomes a song, one in which the dancers’ bodies pulsate—and through them, potentially, the bodies of the audience. An optimistic, extroverted, and enchanting new work about the first times we met, laughed, lived. About our passionate beginnings.
The work is inspired by collective sonic memories: not by specific music, but by the feeling it leaves within us. A landscape that lives within us, travels with us, and allows us to instantly revisit a moment from the past that has never really passed. Everything is still here. Or at least, this is what the work explores: the truth of the youth, momentum, and courage; a truth that, if we consider it fleeting, quaint, or charming, will be forever lost—and along with it, the meaning of our world.
“My Fierce Ignorant Step” resists conformity with a cascade of forms, with an insatiable longing for the present, the future, and the past, with a desire for a life that is bold, laborious, and entirely humane, made of our fragile, insignificant flesh.
The work brings to the fore qualities that have always been present in Christos Papadopoulos’ oeuvre, but the emphasis shifts radically here. Specific themes and materials have concerned him from the beginning, but now they are clearly discernible and among them is the idea of “togetherness,” the simple initial point where both politics and love seem to appear. That is why the performers dance together in this work.
Christos Papadopoulos’ note
“How can there not be anger with everything going on around us? How can one bear this reality? The political situation, the rise of the far right, corruption, wars that we have now come to accept as a kind of political normalcy, environmental destruction—all the things we once believed we would never have to live through are here.
In this bleak reality, where the lines of dystopia have already been crossed, I’ve recently found myself reverting to my adolescent years. I remember that lust for life, the speed, the unwavering drive, the sense that anything was possible. That fearless confidence that the world was in front of us, open, and ours, and that we would live it the way we desired and deserved.
This work is my attempt to revisit that feeling. To find it again. And with it, to regain that strength, that optimism, and that sense of “together.” I have to remind myself that hoping is already an act of resistance and that such courage was neither naïve nor quaint at all. It was true. And it still is.”
Christos Papadopoulos studied dance and choreography at SNDO (School for New Dance Development) in Amsterdam, theater at theDrama School of Greece’s National Theater, and Political Sciencesin Athens. He is a founding member of the dance group “The Lion and the Wolf.”
His first works, “OPUS” and “ELVEDON“, were met with great acclaim when presented at the Porta Theater in Greece. “ELVEDON” was the first choice of Aerowaves ’16 and was later presented in Paris, Amsterdam, and other European cities. “OPUS” was chosen by Aerowaves ’18, and soon after began its international tour.
“LARSEN C” (2021), an international coproduction, has already been presented to more than 25 venues and festivals across Europe. In 2023, he created the work “MELLOWING” for the prestigious dance company Dance On and, later on, “MYCELIUM” for the Lyon Opera Ballet and the Biennale de la Danse Lyon. These works are touring worldwide.
Concept & Choreography: Christos Papadopoulos
Dancing and Collaborating: Themis Andreoulaki, Maria Bregianni, Amalia Kosma, Georgios Kotsifakis, Sotiria Koutsopetrou, Tasos Nikas, Spyros Ntogas, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Danae Pazirgiannidi, Adonis Vais
Dramaturgy Consultant: Alexandros Mistriotis
Original Music: Kornilios Selamsis
Associate Composer: Jeph Vanger
Set Design: Clio Boboti
Costume Design: Maria Panourgia
Lighting Design: Stefanos Drousiotis
Vocal Training: Apostolis Psichramis
Assistant to the Choreographer: Sevasti Zafeira
Assistant to the Set Designer: Aggeliki Vasilopoulou-Kampitsi
Assistant to the Costumes Designer: Panayiotis Renieris
Coordination and Line Production: Zoe Mouschi, Rena Andreadaki
Tour Lightening Head: Giorgos Ierapetritis
Tour Set Managers: Marilena Kalaitzantonaki, Aggeliki Vasilopoulou-Kampitsi
Sound Engineer: Kostis Pavlopoulos
Tour Manager: Konstantina Papadopoulou
A Project by Christos Papadopoulos // „The lion and the wolf“
Special Thanks to: Euripides Laskaridis, Sotiris Melanos, Filanthi Bougatsou
Commissioned and Produced by “Onassis Stegi“
With the Support of Dance Reflections By Van Cleef & Arpels
Co-Producers: Theatre De La Ville – Paris (France), Julidans (The Netherlands), Romaeuropa Festival (Italy), Theatre d’ Orleans / Scène Nationale (France), Lac Lugano Arte e Cultura (Switzerland), December Dance Concertgebouw Brugge (Belgium), One Dance Festival (Bulgaria), Festival De Marseille (France) I Teatri Di Reggio Emilia (Italy), & more to be announced soon.
Supported by the “Onassis Stegi“ Touring Program
Christos Papadopoulos with “My Fierce Ignorant Step” is nominated for the Fedora Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Prize 2025
With the Financial support of the Ministry of Culture
Premiere: 7 May 2025, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens.
Photos by: Pinelopi Gerasimou, Panos Kefalos.
Website: https://christospapadopoulos.art
The festival “New Baltic Dance” is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, the Vilnius City Municipality, the Lithuanian Culture Institute, and the EU.
