YOU SEE
I RESIST THESE SELVES
WHEN I KNOW IT'S NOT ONLY ME
MOVING AROUND
AND ALL I SEE IS NO SYNERGY
ALTHOUGH A FRIEND
A COMRADE IS HUGGING ME
IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME
AND THEN A PLACE
THAT IS KILLING ME
IT BREAKS MY BONES
AND LEAVES WHAT'S INSIDE OF ME
-spoken word of the performance-
NEAR MISSES,
2025
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NEAR MISSES is a solo performance and a visual installation. The performance deals with the body as a site of struggle. It explores ‘near-to’ experiences of hardship, transformation and failure. A series of acts unfolds gradually, blending spoken words, protective symbolic objects, and intense physical states. With deliberate yet brute gestures, gargoyle-like facial expressions and self-defense physicalities, the piece reveals an incessant becoming that shifts between silence and rage.
The performer is accompanied by a set of wearable metal objects that operate as both burdens and bodily extensions. It generates a sonic and vocal altar that gradually reveals an overexposed gesture of obtaining freedom and resilience in chaos.
The work echoes the challenges of physicality, commenting on an urge for a collective deliberation against fear and failure. A set of liminal points of acceptance and reconstruction is brought to the surface through a dive into sorrow when tackling ‘misses.’
DATES
7-8.11.25 | Emergentia festival, Geneva, Switzerland
19.6.25 | Latitudes Contemporaines, Lille, France
27.5.25 | SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Utrecht, Netherlands
3-6.4.25 | Onassis Dance Days 2025, Athens, Greece (premiere)
NEAR MISSES is supported by the Onassis Stegi “Outward Turn” Cultural Export Program
CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY & ARTISTIC DIRECTION
Fotini Stamatelopoulou
PERFORMACE
Despina Sanida Crezia
ORIGINAL MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN
Panos Alexiadis
METALLIC WEARABLES & SCULPTURAL ELEMENTS
Dimitris Tampakis
LIGHTING DESIGN
Nysos Vasilopoulos
TEXTS
Fotini Stamatelopoulou
DRAMATURGICAL SUPPORT
Elena Novakovits
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT
Alex Papasimakopoulou
PRODUCED BY
Onassis Stegi
CO-PRODUCED BY
Latitudes Contemporaines, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, MIRfestival
SUPPORTED BY
the European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists (EFFEA)
RESEARCH SUPPORTED BY
the Grand Luxe Network choreographic platform and Onassis AiR (Athens), L'Abri (Geneva), TROIS C-L (Luxembourg), Pôle-Sud (Strasbourg), Grand Studio (Brussels), and Theater Freiburg
PHOTO CREDITS
1, 2, 3, 4 ©Pinelopi Gerasimou, 2025 | 5 ©Allard Willemse, 2025
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PRESS
"The performer’s tomboy presence (Despina Sanida Crezia), flirts with both fragility and robustness, they have a serene and composed energy which is gradually unfolding, like a wavering ripple breaking grandiosely on the shore. Their singing, from the gloomy lows to the granular highs, resonates with the conflictual atmosphere of the performance; this fight is fought with soulful dedication, giving us free dives into tenebrous depths... If this performance feels like an invitation into a private shelter, you soon realise that the patterns employed resonate with something personal, reminding us that the idea of wholeness is never quite achieved; on the contrary, if there’s a path to recovery then it must involve empathy, embracing at times ugly feelings and letting go of anger with poetic exuberance."
-Springback magazine, 5.25, written by Anastasio Koukoutas
"...“Near Misses” draws its style from the realm of performance art — but even more from that of ritual. Existential, mystical, and deeply moving.."
“I died ten times this month": with these words, the performer,..., begins her rebellious prayer — a sequence of actions and charged emotions: anger, pain, fear, and perhaps a few drops of faith for those times when life triumphs over death."
-Monopoli, 4.25, Stella Charami
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