29th Kalamata Dance Festival

The leading contemporary dance encounter in Greece, the Kalamata Dance Festival, is taking place for the 29th consecutive year from 14 to 23 July 2023. This year’s 29kdf2023 artistic programme, titled (Re)Turn to the Body, will feature choreographers, dancers, and teachers from 10 countries across four continents, including Asia, Europe, America, and Africa. The evolution of contemporary dance on a global scale will be represented by a total of 17 productions; 10 from Greece and 7 from abroad. Among them is the world-renowned Chinese choreographer Tao Che and the Tao Dance Theater Company, who will be presenting 11, in collaboration with the Venice Dance Biennale. Other notable performers include the Out Innerspace Dance Theatre & Film Society from Canada, who will make their first appearance in Greece, the multi-award-winning Marco da Silva Ferreira from Portugal, and many more.

A rich and varied program comprising the performances of the Main Stage, the productions of the Kalamata Dance Megaron’s Black Box, and the performances that will take place at the Kalamata Main Square. The programme will showcase dance performances that incorporate various genres, combining theatre, live music, and digital media. The Festival will welcome foreign artists from 10 different countries including China, Canada, France, Portugal, Belgium, Slovakia, Germany, Italy, Croatia, and Mozambique, who will present their works and teach professional workshops.

This year's programme is titled (Re)Turn to the Body. The human body has gone through numerous transformations throughout the history of Western culture and will continue to do so in the future. Despite the vast knowledge we have about our bodies, we are still discovering and exploring new aspects of them. Our body is an integral part of who we are, and it is through our body that we experience all that life has to offer.

This year’s Festival explores the body in its unified, natural state, discussing what it means to be alive and mortal. Our focus is not on the body as a biological entity or as a cipher for abstract concepts, but rather as the actual locale of each individual’s existence, as a manifestation of life itself, along with the awe, mystery, and respect that it inspires.

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29KDF2023 trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtbPZRG7jxc

Please find the 29th Kalamata Dance Festival full and detailed programme on our website at:

https://kalamatadancefestival....

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The Kalamata International Dance Festival is the key event in the year of the city's cultural activities and the leading contemporary-dance encounter of Greece. The festival, was organised for the first time in the summer of 1995, and since then it has been charged with supporting and promoting the art of dance via research, education and artistic creativity.

Recognising dance as a basic human need, its main objective is to be a Festival open to the international community, to all age groups, to the arts and to collaboration with other organisations – a Festival dedicated to education, research and innovation, supportive of and generous to artists, a festival that is morally and philosophically inspiring for the public. It pursues the dialogue between dance and all the arts, promoting reflection and engagement with the human body and movement at all levels – the practical, philosophical, artistic and educational.

After twenty nine years as an active presence in the Greek dance scene, thanks to the support of the local authorities the Kalamata Dance Festival has earned itself a special place on the festival map of the Mediterranean South, and built bridges to international dance creativity.

A number of influential figures, whose work is shaping the history of contemporary dance made their first Greek appearance at Kalamata, while the Festival has also taken care to promote and support Greek creativity in the field by commissioning works from talented Greek choreographers and supporting new companies in their experimental explorations.

Another integral part of the Festival are the workshops and talks aimed at dance students and professions alike, while other parallel events include publications and video dance productions.

From the very start, the Festival was programmed with two considerations in mind: the wide range of trends in contemporary dance and the ever-larger audiences this art-form attracts. Today, twenty nine years down the line, every year sees a widely-varied audience enthusiastically respond to the call of the Festival.

Kalamata, the city of dance, hosts its 29th annual festival from 14 to 23 July, 2023.