The Cretan virtuoso dancers Giannis and Giorgos Megalakakis and director-choreographer Pavlos Kourtidis intoduce the dance theatre performance “LABYRINTH, from darkness into light” at Pallas Theater, in Athens on the occasion of the anniversary of the historic battle of Crete.
Main goal is to highlight the cultural characteristics of the island.
For the first time Cretan and Modern dance steps are combined to offer a unique spectacle/escape, in an original attempt to visualize the culture of Crete through the art of orchestral and theatrical conception.
Onstage twenty-seven dancers and five musicians unite their talent, art, worldview and their souls, to offer their very own art thread to the viewer, that will lead them, albeit for just a few hours, away from the maze reality of everyday life and beyond any individual impasses.
“It is a challenge to find yourself confronted with your own culture while you depict it though movement and image at the same time. It is an enormous responsibility because the show is a journey into the very heart of our culture, “says director Pavlos Kourtidis.
“It is a meeting with our ancestors, and a bridge of communication with the future. The primeval history of our dance steps illuminate the darkness of the Labyrinth (maze) we face at all times” say Giannis & Giorgos Megalakakis.
Stories from Cretan tradition, history (“Taurokathapsia (bull-leaping), Daskalogiannis), traditional rhyming couplets (mantinades), myths (the Ariadne’s Thread) and music (Andreas Rodinos) become one with the Pyrrhic, Geranos and Orsiti, the primeval folk dances that evolve and are redefined in the present, through the parallel Action and recuperative energy of modern dance, following a singular directorial idea.
The music is composed exclusively for the show, and is a blend of traditional Cretan music and fresh sounds that reflect the trends of our time. Viewers are confronted with a realistic Labyrinth depicting the primitive and the renovation – the past and the present. Complex, versatile and yet so familiar …
Grounding, takeoff, ritual, spiral, improvisation are the words that characterize Cretan dance and the LABYRINTH is a journey into the heart of our culture.
Labyrinth was presented at Pallas Theater.