2026, ALL SUMMER FESTIVALS

23rd Summer Dance Festival

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23rd Summer Dance Festival

About

Summer Dance Festival – 23rd edition

From the 5th to the 7th of June 2026, the 23rd Summer Dance Festival by Nea Kinisi unfolds across the Municipal Garden and the seafront of Limassol. Featuring eight artistic proposals—including walks, a cypher, and late-night gatherings—the festival invites audiences to gather in new ways.

This year’s programme approaches the body as a site of listening and relation: attuned to the shifting rhythms of the garden, the city, and one another. Moving between noise and silence, instruction and improvisation, intimacy and collectivity, the works inhabit the Municipal Garden as a living commons — a space where human and more-than-human worlds meet, overlap, and negotiate coexistence. Across performances, gatherings, and encounters, the festival proposes choreography as a way of sharing space, attention, care, and presence.

The festival includes a dedicated hub hosted by Kafeneio tis Giorgias, with snacks by Shuffle Bakes, a line-up of dance-film screenings, and a vinyl set at the G-Spot bar by the beach.

All events are free and open to all.

Schedule

Performances

Ways of Listening

Artist: Neus Montané
Duration: 1 hour

Stand / Wait / Move

Artist: Collins
Duration: 15 minutes

Are you listening?

Artist: Andrea Louca
Duration: 3 hours

Embodied Gardens

Artist: Rhyzome Choreographic School with Ria Alexandrou
Duration: Multiple

Bubbling Bright Futures or How to Cement Pixels

Artist: Seta Astreou-Karides & Nicola Mitropoulou
Duration: 25 minutes

Map Interrupted

Artist: Areti Chourdaki & Ioli Kaskani
Duration: 3 hours

Cyph3: Jamming

Duration: 2 hours

Together-ing

Artist: Maria Papageorgiou
Duration: 25 minutes

Executive Production: Dimitris Chimonas
Production Assistants: Georgia Andreou, Anastasia Zanti, Maria Antoniou
Technical Production: Yangos Hadjiyannis
Graphic Identity: Vangelis Angelides
Photography: Pavlos Vrionides
Video Documentation: Coula Karasava
Warm Thanks to: Elisavet Panayiotou, G-Spot beach bar, Limassol Dance House, Sessions, Lex Gregoriou

 

Organized by Nea Kinisi, with funding from the Deputy Ministry of Culture and support from the Municipality of Limassol. This year’s selection of works was curated by Evita Ioannou, Marita Anastasi, Marios Pavlou, Georgia Andreou, and Diamanto Hadjizacharia.

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slips away from you

Belinda Papavasiliou, Petros Konnaris
Duration: 4-5hrs
Soundscape: Panos Bartzis
Costume design: Arianna Marcoulides
Seamstress: Dora Panagiotou

The long durational performance ‘slips away from you’ negotiates the relation between bodies and horizon; the line seemingly separating the sky from the earth, framing our gaze while we ponder upon notions of distance and vastness, and the far away and the infinite. Activating the viewers’ gaze, Belinda and Petros visit the last breakwaters before Molos and explore how they coexist with the real and imaginary elements inhabiting this specific landscape as well as how they are integrated and become an extension of the site. Visitors are invited to spend time in this environment experiencing the sea in the modern city of Limassol and through the kinesthetic, visual and sound stimuli to experience another temporality and imagine, individually and collectively, how we begin a new day. *Please bring headphones and a smartphone for a better experience of the performance. On Sunday 14.7 morning there will be cold brew and snacks by Shuffle Bakes.

Artist bio:

Belinda Papavasiliou (born 1992) is an artist and movement practitioner based in Cyprus. She creates performance works, installations, experimental dance films, curates sensory walks and facilitates open practice and movement workshops. She also works as a performer, choreographer and movement director collaborating with various artists, cultural collectives and organisations in Cyprus and beyond.
Some of her works were presented at Thkio Ppalies, Atelier Processes of Healing: Becoming well Again at Dance House Nicosia, Sessions x Spel State Gallery, Prague Quadrennial, Rialto theatre, Open House Festival, Majestic State Gallery, Xarkis Festival, Cyprus Choreography Showcase, ONCA Gallery, 4bid gallery OT301 Amsterdam Cultural Center and others.

Petros Konnaris (Nicosia, 1988) works between the fields of live art, participatory art, and dance since 2011. Petros’ work focuses on the performativity and embodiment of care, relationality, ‘holding the space’, and generating curiosity and thought-provoking environments.
His artistic research is expressed through daily actions, durational happenings, 1-1 (one with one) performances, public interventions, and process-based artefacts. His methodology includes the use of discussion and writing, performing the practice and research as performance with influences by feminist and queer interpretations of belongingness.
Since 2022 he has been the artistic director of the Dance House Lefkosia.

21st Summer Dance Festival 2024

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Vacationists in the Absurd

Styliana Apostolou, Polena Kolia Petersen
Duration: 40 minutes

In “Vacationists in the Absurd” the heroines attempt to find or create meaning, when vanity begins to threaten all of their rotten foundations. Acquainted with a world that praises absurdity, individualism and competitiveness for them to serve the comfortable capitalist machine of their lives, they are confronted with either hysterically sustaining things as they know them or creating solidarian resistances to our toxic times. The piece uses humor and elements from dancetheater wishing to mobilize concern and a critical gaze towards our choices and ways of living in this world motivated by money, profit and alienation

The piece has been developed and initially presented as part and with the support of the Transnational Residency between Dance Days Chania Festival and Dance House Lemesos 2023 and Sofia Falierou and Alexis Vassiliou accordingly.

Thanks to Lia Haraki for her mentorship for the presentation of the piece at the Festival of Nea Kinisi 2024.

Artist bio:

21st Summer Dance Festival 2024

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Matter

Duration: 49 minutes
Melissa Garcia Carro in collaboration with Arianna Economou
Dramaturgy: Pascal Caron
Costumes: Georgia Moditi

“Matter” is a choreographic piece in which Arianna and Melissa perform their encounter as dancers. The choreography reveals the knowledge and narratives embedded within bodily materiality – whether it be a dynamic interplay between mother and daughter, or teacher and student – creating a space to reflect on how people come together.

Artist bio:

Melissa Garcia Carro is a dance artist and educator. As a dancer, Melissa finds profound joy in movement and seeks to constantly evolve and explore new creative frontiers. Her artistic research is characterised by a commitment to self- transformation and the cultivation of imaginative spaces that invite immersive experiences. Collaboration lies at the core of her artistic work, as she always engages in creative partnerships.

21st Summer Dance Festival 2024

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Let unfold

Maria Papageorgiou
Duration: 15’
Artistic Collaborator: Diamanto Hadjizacharia
Photo: Diamanto Hadjizacharia

This solo performance is about grief.
This solo follows a culture with sustained grief.
This is not a proposal on quick healing.
Grief is a personal matter.
This matter brings me melancholy.
This solo is being danced by my melancholy.
My melancholy fades as I dance.

Artist bio:

Maria Papageorgiou (b.1998) is a dancer currently based in Limassol. She graduated from ‘Aktina’ Professional Dance School in Athens in October 2021. She continued her studies in Spain at the ‘La Faktoria Choreographic Center’. She has worked and performed for Marta Coronado and Laida Aldaz Arrieta. She showed cased her solo piece ‘When I get anxious, I put my shoes on’ at on Bodies 2022 festival hosted by Dance House Lefkosia. She has taken various workshops and seminars with Salva Sanchis, Georgia Vardarou, Thomas Hauert, Daivd Zambrano, Bertha Bermudez, Manuel Pelmus and Vera Mantero.

21st Summer Dance Festival 2024

A meeting- celebration

Viky Kalla
Duration : 25’

Communication among people is always important. The collective energy, sharing, and the possibilities that the group, the mass, can function as a relief from the stress and discomfort of everyday life. Contact with other people is important for our psychology and well-being.
The work refers to the crowding of the mass, the group of people who are very close to one another. There is a strong need for substantial communication and contact between people. By seeking the unexpected and through the freedom of choice, we remain adventurous, alive, vulnerable, and dynamic. This path is difficult and often brings us embarrassment.
However, it is also the one that shows us ways to something new and refreshing, opens gaps of surprise for us, and gives us moments full of meaning. Moments of connection and presence, a meeting – celebration. We find ways to move functionally, simply, and mainly together where they bring us to the here and now of movement. Alive, free, different.

Performers

Elisavet Panagiotou
Elias Klark
Apollo Anastasiades
John Stamataris
Marianna Yiannaki
Ioli Kaskani
Constantinos Tsiakkas
Maria Chrysostomou
Noutsa Nina Poulouzasvili
Elina Karacosta
Avgoustina Triarou

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Artist bio:

Vicky Kalla started her studies at the age of 16 with a scholarship at the professional school of dance “Epsedanse” in Montpellier, France. She studied both classical and contemporary dance; and in 2006 she acquired the state diploma of France “EAT” (Examen D’Attitude Technique). She completed her studies in Greece at the Higher School of Larissa and graduated as a dance teacher in 2011. She joined the Thessalian Ballet under the direction of Gesh Mihov (2008-2011)l In 2010, she was amongst the 15 finalists of the International competition “Premio Roma” in Italy and in 2011 she won the 3rd prize at the “Chausson d’Or” competition in France. In Cyprus, her first collaboration was in 2009 for the “Kypria” Festival with Amfidromo Chorotheatro and in 2010 she joined the company created for the events of the 50th anniversary of the Republic of Cyprus. Since 2011 she has been living in Cyprus and has worked amongst others with Amfidromo Chorotheatro, Asomates Dynameis, Dance Cyprus, Fotis Nikolaou and other choreographers. On 2015 she founded “Kalla Dancing Studio” in Nicosia, which she has been directing.

21st Summer Dance Festival 2024