4th Cyprus Choreography Showcase
Three days celebrating contemporary dance from Cyprus, featuring eight selected choreographic works and a programme of encounters, exchange and professional networking.
The Department of Modern and Contemporary Culture of the Deputy Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with Rialto Theatre, presents the 4th Cyprus Choreography Showcase, taking place from 18 to 20 September 2026 at Rialto Theatre in Limassol.
The Cyprus Choreography Showcase (SKX) is an established platform dedicated to presenting selected choreographic works from Cyprus to international artistic directors, curators and contemporary dance festival organisers, who are invited specifically for this purpose. Through this international encounter, the Showcase aims to create opportunities for Cyprus-based artists and choreographers to present their work abroad and develop new professional collaborations.
The 4th edition brings together nine choreographic works representing the diversity and vitality of Cyprus’ contemporary dance scene. Addressing themes including power and abuse, identity, gender, social justice, female strength, collective experience, transformation, instinct and our relationship with the future, the programme reflects a broad range of artistic approaches and choreographic practices.
The Showcase is complemented by MEANWHILE, a series of parallel activities organised by the Dance House Limassol, Dance House Lefkosia and Nea Kinisi, offering further opportunities for exchange, discussion and networking within the local and international dance community.
PROGRAMME
Friday, 18 September 2026
19:00 | Panos Malactos – NO IM NOT | 25’
NO IM NOT digs into the abuse power dynamics within the dance world. Challenging the façade of wellness often presented in the sector, the piece shows how dancers struggle with their mental health in a toxic work environment – navigating systemic abuse, manipulation, and unrealistic expectations in their professional lives. NO IM NOT is a continuation of Are You Okay?, Panos’ previous full evening group work, which showcases the duality of the dancers’ experiences, unravelling the dissonance between the societal pressure to appear “okay”, and their inner turmoil.
Choreography: Panos Malactos
Dancers: Styliana Apostolou, Natalia Vasiliki Vagena / Andrea Ordonez Torre, Melina Sophocleous
Assistant: Magda Argyridou
Lighting design: Vasilis Petinaris
Costume design: Orestis Lazouras
Music Credits: Aenaa - Die Arkitekt, The Swan - Camille Saint-Saëns, Dystopia - Wax Wings&Die Arkitekt
Music Production: TEO.x3
Lyrics: Ody Icon
20:00 | Petros Konnaris & Rodia Vomvolou – The future is dark which is the thing a future can be | 120’ | Seating on Stage
The future is dark which is the best thing a future can be is a performance–board game that seeks critical ways of engaging with the urgencies of contemporary reality while activating alternative speculations about the future. Three players, guided by two facilitators, move like pawns across a floored landscape of stations of knowledge/ notions such as The Palace of Feminist Governance, The Rock of Responsibility, and The Cavern of Care, and through scores, they produce poetic manifestoes, imaginary narratives, critical questions, and embodied landscapes. The project investigates the relationship between the logic of a board game and choreographic thinking, blurring the line between performing arts and everyday life, proposing a horizontal redistribution of agency and power hierarchies. Drawing on the performativity and aesthetics of the (90s) TV game shows, the performance activates an open, vulnerable, and playful space for dialogue, reflection, and collective imagination.
Concept & Artistic Direction: Petros Konnaris, Rodia Vomvolou
Scenography, Game’s Visual Identity: Chrysa Georgiou
Performers: Eleana Alexandrou, Konstantina Skalionta, Costantina Peter, Petros Konnaris, Rodia Vomvolou
Original Cast: Eleana Alexandrou, Konstantina Skalionta, Costantina Peter, Miriam Gatt, Areti Chourdaki, Petros Konnaris, Rodia Vomvolou
Graphics: Mary Pilakouri
Electronics Advisor: Yiannis Poulakis
Production: A moment to Perform
In the frame of the Terpsichori 2025 programme of the Department of Contemporary Culture - Deputy Ministry of Culture.
* The title is borrowed from a quote that Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary in 1915, following the outbreak of the First World War, as an attempt to preserve hope.
Saturday, 19 September 2026
19:00 | Harry Koushos – NOT ALL WARS ARE VISIBLE | 40’ | Seating on Stage
In this gripping performance, the audience is called upon to take responsibility for the dancers’ safety. The instruction “Shout the word STOP if women are in danger” establishes a dual reality: a battle unfolding before the spectators’ eyes and another, invisible one, within their minds. The space is shaped like an arena, with the audience surrounding the action. As the performance unravels, the dancers rely on their sense of hearing and touch—the spectators’ bodies become their reference points in space. Perhaps the real battle is not the one you see, but the one happening inside you.
Choreography: Harry Koushos
Performers: Styliana Apostolou, Magda Argyridou, Anna Nicolaou, Melina Sofocleous, Katerina Tylliridou
Lighting Design: Vasilis Petinaris
Set & Sound Design: Harry Koushos
Costumes: Harry Koushos
Production: Limassol Municipality
Co-production: Cyprus New Movement of Dance Groups, Dancers and Choreographers
Photos: Pavlos Vrionides
20:15 | Eve Dimitriou / En Drasei – Say Yes! Again and again | 50’ | 16+ | Seating on Stage
Say Yes! again and again is a performance exploring questions of identity and gender through a playful and optimistic lens. Inspired by Adrienne Maree Brown’s Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (AK Press, 2019), the choreographer, together with the creative team, reflects on what activism can mean today, engaging with positivity and empowerment in saying ‘yes’ to ourselves and to our needs. On stage, three performers from Cyprus, Greece, and the Netherlands use physicality and linguistic forms to share personal experiences that have shaped them as individuals, opening a space to reflect on social norms, queer subjectivities and normative pressures. The work is part of the choreographer’s ongoing research to address social justice issues. Envisioning performance as the beginning of a dialogue with the audience, she explores various performative ways of engaging with body politics.
Choreography: Evie Demetriou in collaboration with performers Eleftheria Socratous, Bas van der Kruk, Rania Glymitsa
Dramaturgy Advisor: Georgina Kakoudaki
Lighting Design: Aleksandar Jotovic
Conversation Partner/Mentor (1st phase): Pavlos Kountourious
Artistic Collaborator: Michalis Papamichael
Vocal Coach: Cathryn Robson
Styling: Kristia Michaelidou
Photography: Pavlos Vrionides
Trailer Filming & Editing: Suzana Phialas
Trailer Sound: Konstantinos K.
Sponsored by the Cultural Services of the Deputy Ministry of Culture within the framework of the Terpsichore programme 2023.
21:15 | Milena Ugren Koulas & Stylish Junkies Collective – Mutated Gene | 50’ | Seating on Stage
In this choreographic work, Milena was inspired by science-based research on how what we believe to be our true nature is an adaptation to the circumstances, environment, and experiences we live in. With dancers, she explored how identity is shaped by what we endure, the experiences we go through, and our relationships and attachments to the people around us.
Choreographer: Milena Ugren Koulas
Dancers: Apollonas Anastasiades, Magda Argyridou, Giannis Economides, Christopher Mills, Anna Nicolaou, Melina Sofocleous, Katerina Tylliridou
Music: Georgios Koulas, Dafni Koulas
Sunday, 20 September 2026
19:00 | Elena Antoniou – ODE | 45’ | On Stage
ODE is a physical poem about togetherness and the principle of “no woman left alone”. Exploring ways of expanding the space available to women, the work approaches female strength through gaze, movement and presence. Elena Antoniou and Anna Papathanasiou transform the institutional space into a field of coordination, where vulnerability becomes a source of power and collective presence becomes an act of assertion.
Concept, Choreography, Performance: Elena Antoniou
Performance: Anna Papathanasiou
Music: Maria Spivak
Dramaturgy: Odysseas I. Konstantinou
Art direction: Christos Kyriakides
Lighting design: Vasilis Petinaris
Styling coordination: Philippe G. Missas
Photography & Graphics: Saint
Production Coordination (Internationally): Alex Papasimakopoulou
Production Coordination (Cyprus): Loukia Vassiliou
With the support of the NEON Organisation for Culture and Development & ONASSIS STEGI Touring Programme.
The premiere of the work took place in Cyprus, as part of the "Terpsichore 2025" programme of the Department of Contemporary Culture, Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture.
20:30 | Melina Sophocleous – Don’t You Just Love Melting? | 30’ | 16+
Drawing from a personal experience of gentrification and a place undergoing constant transformation, Don’t You Just Love Melting? explores the dissolution of familiar people and spaces into something new and unfamiliar. Resistance and surrender coexist in a shifting landscape of emotions, movements and structures. As the work gradually unfolds, the act of watching itself becomes part of the process of “melting”.
Concept, Choreography & Performance: Melina Sofocleous
Music: Kalaqs
Lighting Design: Vasilis Petinaris
Set Design: Rebecca Taki
Produced by: Cyprus Choreography Platform 2024
Co-produced: Dance House Lemesos
Residency Programme: Moving The New (Mtn 2025), Dhl
Mentors: Christos Polymenakos (Platforma) & Rodia Vomvolou (MTN25)
Dialogue Partners: Natalia Vagena, Giorgos Christofi, Eleana Alexandrou, Magda Argyridou, Odysseas I. Konstantinou, Caterina Politi, Joanna
Graphic Design: Danae Laou
Photos: Pavlos Vrionides
*The performance premiered at Cyprus Choreography Platform in 2024 and was further developed during the Moving the New Residency 2025 by Dance House Lemesos
21:20 | Andria Michaelidou – FARMA | 25’
The choreographic work FARMA is inspired by the figure of Pan and his mythological dimension as the god of nature, herds, and instinct. On stage, the shepherd figure emerges as a symbol between order and chaos, guiding the “flock” through a liminal space reflecting social and personal struggles. The choreography blends ritual gestures, animalistic movements, and physical confrontations with urban elements and streetwear aesthetics, creating a stage environment that unites the primordial with the contemporary. Within this hybrid landscape, wildness, cyclicality, and transformation become the language of movement. The work invites the audience on a mythical journey exploring the human relationship with chaos, instinct, and the quest for freedom.
Idea, Choreography: Andria Michaelidou
Dancers: Anna Nicolaou, Maria Chrysostomou, Ivi Hadjivassiliou, Myrianthi Panagiotou, Apollo Anastasiades, Giannis Economides, Mike Demetriou
Music: Andreas Rodosthenous
Thanks to Evi Panayiotou and The Dance Central.
MEANWHILE | Parallel Activities
The 4th Cyprus Choreography Showcase also features MEANWHILE, a series of parallel activities creating spaces for encounter, exchange and professional networking within the dance community.
Saturday, 19 September | 10:00
Walking Gathering | 120’Molos Theatre, Limassol
Sunday, 20 September | 16:00
Pitching Session, Speed Dating & more | 120’Art Studio 55, Limassol
The activities are organised by the New Movement of Dance Groups, Dancers and Choreographers of Cyprus, Limassol Dance House and Nicosia Dance House.
Tickets: €8 per day, available from the Rialto Theatre Box Office, Monday–Friday, 10:00–15:00 (tel. 77777745), and online at https://rialto.interticket.com/programseries/sxk-23 Free admission for school pupils, students, soldiers, pensioners and dance professionals.
Organised by: Deputy Ministry of Culture – Department of Contemporary Culture and Rialto Theatre
In Collaboration with: Dance House Limassol, Dance House Lefkosia, Nea Kinisi
Supported by: Limassol MunicipalityHospitality Sponsor: AlineaMedia Sponsors: Phileleftheros, RIK
Supported by: Limassol Tourism Development and Promotion Company, Vestnik Kipra, Cyprus News, Limassol Blog, Limassol Today, Εφημερίδα Λεμεσός
A member of the European Festival Association.
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