ANDONIS FONIADAKIS DANCE COMPANY: SALEMA REVISITED

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In accordance with the recent regulations, spectators are required to present:
i)  a vaccination certificate issued by a certified authority or
ii) certificate of recovery from the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection issued by a public authority or a certified laboratory
In addition they should show:
either their ID or driver's license or passport or other any other proof of identity so as to carry out identity checks

All spectators are required to wear face masks throughout their stay in the Thessaloniki Concert Hall

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Sálema* is a struggle with time, immobility and the actual moment. It is where tradition encounters modernism, plurality meets abstraction and the light faces darkness, as dancers and musicians couple in a bizarre game by unearthing memories and feelings. The choreography leads the way for musicians and the audience to dive into a mystical abstract journey starting from Crete. The music renounces itself to give way and highlight the movement, and the interpretation of the dance image.
Salema Revisited, the new creation by the international Greek choreographer Antonis Foniadakis wants to honor the music and the dances of his birthplace, Crete. The Cretan dances are an inseparable part of the social life of the island and there are many variations from place to place and from one person to the next. In that context Foniadakis feels the need to offer his own perspective in terms of how tradition may exist and interact with other forms of expression, like contemporary dance, without threatening or offending the existing condition but rather in an attempt of enriching and promoting tradition to a wider audience with a sense of respect and pride. 
 
There are twenty-five types of dance in the dance heritage of Crete, not known to the whole of the island but thriving in specific areas. Some examples are ‘yitsikia sousta’, ‘glykomilitsa’, ‘rodo’, ‘fterotos syrtos’, ‘koytsabadianos’, ‘trizalis o apanomeritis', ‘mikro mikraki’, ‘brimianos or priniotis’, ‘agkaliastos’, ‘xenobasaris’, ‘zerbodexos’, as well as many types of slow and jumpy dances. In Salema Revisited the choreographer does not attempt to record each and every one of them; besides that was never his intention. What he wishes is to interpret with his own personal style the valiance, the beauty, the lyricism and the pain of the Cretan soul.
 
And above all he wishes to depict the force of the Cretans dancing ‘pentozali’ (a ten-step dance, alluding to the 10^th of October 1769, when the Sfakians decided to start a revolution against the Ottomans). Accordingly the dance is accompanied by a musical piece of twelve phrases in honour of the twelve pioneers of the revolution. By focusing on the five most widespread dances, ‘sousta’, ‘maleviziotis’, ‘syrtos’ or ‘chaniotis’, ‘pentozali’, and by adding a selection of ‘rizitika’ songs, Foniadakis creates a colourful and multiform spectrum of rhythms and melodies to direct the flow of the performance. By combining the principles and the motifs of traditional dances with his multi-year experience, both as a dancer of contemporary dance and as a choreographer having created his own personal dance identity (developed slowly and steadily during these two last decades with performances and Dance Festivals worldwide) the audience will make a journey into passion, sweetness, melody and mysticism, stemming from Cretan music.
*[noun deriving from the ancient Greek verb σαλεύω [saleyo], meaning to sway; figuratively it means to go mad]


Andonis Foniadakis Dance Company