The Castle of anti-escape was a programme that hosted a series of collaborations with artists of sound, visual arts and cinema like Yiannis Christofides, Cathryn Robson, Sakari Laurila, Yakinthi Lagiou, Maria Leonidou, Christos Hadjichristou and Lia Haraki at Theatro Polis OPAP in collaboration with NiMAC (The Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Associated with the Pierides Foundation). The programme was supported by the cultural services of the ministry of culture cyprus.

The project came from Haraki’s desire to collaborate with each of these artists (which include old and new collaborators) in creating artworks that challenge the notion of escapism.

Escapism is understood here in the sense that we all become experts at some point or another of the habit of escaping, rather than dealing with and recognising, certain uncomfortable ways of thinking, emotional and behavioural patterns and actions, which we would condemn if we stopped to really acknowledge them for an instance. It’s the small sweet, ‘innocent’, self-deceptive and daily violent acts we all do, which we are usually too blind to see or too deaf to hear, as they are inconvenient to admit. 

Thus, the topic of the programme specifically focussed on how art could play a role in making humans become more responsible and conscious of their existence by ‘anti-escaping’ from it. The aim was to find means, in which art became a source of support and discovery for emotional, social and psychological ‘anti-escaping’, rather than a vessel of escape, which is very often the case with contemporary art. In other words, for art to become a medium that is used to embrace uncomfortable moments, rather than to avoid them.

The collaborations took place as short residencies at Theatro Polis OPAP between lockdowns and theatre openings and eventually were shared with the audience in different forms.

CREDITS:

Curation: Lia Haraki

Texts: Lia Haraki in collaboration with Kammari research group

Graphics: Christina Pandjarou

Video documentation: Sakari Laurila

Production: .pelma.Lia Haraki

Co-production: NiMAC (The Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Associated with the Pierides Foundation)

Supported by the Cultural Services of the Cyprus ministry of Education and Culture

PELMA in collaboration with NiMAC  [Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Associated with the Pierides Foundation] hosted ten participants with a wide range of practices and specializations, such as visual and performing arts, dramaturgy, performance art and science. During their residency, participants had access and techincal support to the Theatropolis OPAP space for their research. As part of their residency, participants delivered private and public presentations in the forms of performances, workshops and lectures.

BRIDGES was a residency programme which aimed at providing the context for a new kind of territoriality, which allows for the socio-political boundaries of art in our times to be challenged, shifted and transformed. A territoriality which will enable non-restricted and bold research to take place and which will build bridges between performing arts, visual arts, performance art and science.

The residency programme focussed on the creative research of these new territories through the practices of artists and scientists from Cyprus and the international scene. These were (in alphabetical order) :

Aleksandra Borys (choreographer of art and science)

Alexis VAsiliou (performance artist / curator)

Charlotte Jarvis (visual artist)

Enacttheatre

Guy Cools (dance dramaturge)

Maria A Loizidou (cancer geneticist)

Marina Genadieva (visual and performance artist)

Nikolas Kasinos (performance and visual artist)

PASHIAS (visual artist)

Petros Konnaris (performance artist)

Members of the curatorial team were:

Dr. Yiannis Toumazis, Lia Haraki, Andrea S. D’ Alessandro

Link of links: Dr Yiannis Papadakis

Open House festival - Sexpectations

The 6th Open House International Dance Festival of Dance House Lemesos with the theme 'SEXPECTATIONS,' featuring international artists such as Ivo Dimchev, Hodworks, Eleana Alexandrou and Tabea Martin was curated by Lia Haraki.

Sexpectations included artistic works that commented and body in ‘turn off or turn on’ ways with themes of sexual identity and its many different possibilities, with its kinds of orientation, its ability to role play and create fantasies, with its nature to invent positions,  trends and styles, with its relationship to love.  Works that allowed spectators to witness and be challenged in the aspects of physical taboos, don’ts, shoulds and shouldn’ts and many ‘must tryouts’ in this lifetime games, which all came down to the essence of all living creatures: The desire to connect.

The Aerowaves nights were hosted at Dance House Lemesos and included works by finalists of the Aerowaves network.

‘Is it dance ? daoes it matter?’ was the title of the evening curated by Lia Haraki , in 2010 where the works Cosas by Alma Soderberg - Sweden and Allege by Public in Private - Germany, were hosted.

‘Serious fun dance’ was the title of the evening curated by Lia Haraki , in 2008 where the works Piece by Caroline Simon - Germany, Hanging in there by Legitimate Bodies Dance Company - Ireland and Forstillinger by Club Fisk-Denmark, were hosted.