Kalamata International Dance Festival

We are pleased to announce that the 26th edition of the Kalamata International Dance Festival will take place this year on 21-30 August 2020. The Festival, adapted to the current situation, happens again this year despite the most difficult circumstances it has had to face in its 26 years of existence. Our primary goal is to hold a safe Festival, with all the necessary protective measures for the public and for the personnel.

21 performances that combine different genres —from contemporary and hip hop to acrobatics and flamenco— and an intensive educational programme will make Kalamata an international focal point for contemporary dance for ten days, on 21-30 August.

The Festival’s programme was born of unusual circumstances and has changed from what was conceived originally. This year’s Festival aims to meet the needs of this particular time period and communicate to the whole world that we must, by all means, keep our contact with art alive, especially the art of dance, which is based so much on human contact and the human body.

Our main focus is the contemporary humans’ relationship to Nature and Need. In the midst of a wider historical context, not just the pandemic, it is important for the spectators to see and feel what dance has to tell us.

26KDF2020 performances speak of the need for a new balance but also the need to listen to our inner rhythm. New creators join artists with long histories in contemporary dance to share with the public their expectation for change, for true human values, for a revision of our relationship with Mother Nature, with the Self and with the Other. Greek and foreign artists will meet in the city’s open spaces to present 10 Greek and 11 foreign productions and speak through their work of deep and true human needs.

The Castle of Kalamata will host great contemporary dance creators and performers, with pieces presented in Greece for the first time: Wim Vandekeybus with his company Ultima Vez and their latest creation TRACES, Israel Galván with his Solo: Revolution Without Music, and Peeping Tom with their latest production Diptych. Also noteworthy are the Greek productions KAOS by Ioanna Portolou and the Griffón Dance Company, a production of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Tamata by Fotis Nikolaou, and materia by kóka&panú (Konstantina Euthimiadou and Panagiotis Manouilidis), in a world premiere. And every evening the Festival invites all residents and visitors of Kalamata to enjoy outdoor performances with free entrance at Kalamata Main Square.

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26KDF2020 trailer:

https://youtu.be/rxZdhsdBUR4

Please find the 26th Kalamata Dance Festival full and detailed programme on our website at:

http://kalamatadancefestival.gr/index.php/en/

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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 six years as an active presence in the Greek dance scene, thanks to the support of the local authorities the Kalamata 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 six 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 26th annual festival from 21 to 30 August, 2020.