LUNA PARK team returns to Athens with the performance “Another Place” (ALZHEIMAT) on November 04 & 05, 2023 at PLYFA. Free entry with pre-booked seat!
The group LUNA PARK presents the dance work “Another Place” (ALZHEIMAT). The project focuses on the small, but noticeable changes, the critical moments and the coping needs required by the loss of identity – both from the sufferers themselves and from their social environment.
With the project “Another Place” (ALZHEIMAT), the group tries to draw attention to a topic of high social and political importance. However, the work is not intended to be a complaint about the shortcomings of the system, nor is it a hymn, an appeal to emotion for the lost memory of a loved one. It is a journey of discovery, through which the viewer can briefly share the world of those wandering in oblivion. Those who wander to another place. It is a story with beautiful and sad moments, which leads us to awakened pasts, while reviving for a few minutes the dormant futures.
The project “Another Place” (ALZHEIMAT) challenges a society clinging to the fantasy of a better tomorrow and reminds us that in reality we only have the NOW. It shows us how fragile, vulnerable, interconnected and dependent on each other we are as humans and as social beings. It reminds us that this disease forces us to learn to live in the present. The show aims to give the necessary attention to all those who dedicate themselves daily to the difficult treatment of the disease. It seeks to initiate an open dialogue, which will allow the recognition and expression of pain, exhaustion, sadness.
The performance is the result of an open process, where the writer Kai Pichmann, the director Ron Rosenberg and the choreographers Nikos Kalivas and Kosmas Kosmopoulos, together with six young performers and one performer over 65 years of age, examined the characteristic coexistence of memory and forgetting, resistance, hope, resignation and acceptance, concepts closely linked to the disease. Testimonies from the lived experiences of relatives, caregivers and medical professionals played an important role in the creation of the project.
In Greece, 197,000 people suffer from dementia, mainly from the degenerative form of Alzheimer’s disease. By 2050, it is expected that the number of patients will have reached 354,000. At the moment, it does not seem possible to cure or completely successfully treat the symptoms. Even promising news about new treatments is contrasted with their extremely high costs. The difficulties faced by patients are multiplied by those of their relatives, while professional help is becoming increasingly difficult to find and to finance by those concerned, amid a prolonged period of economic and health crisis and a health system that remains understaffed and underfunded.
Production and support
ALZHEIMAT is a co-production of LUNA PARK, Kosmas Kosmopoulos and Kai Pichmann, funded by the German Foundation for the Performing Arts with funds from the Federal German Government’s Commissioner for Culture and Media, within the framework of NEUSTART KULTUR. ALZHEIMAT was implemented in collaboration with Initiative LUNA PARK e.V. and the Gesundbrunnen-Grundschule Elementary School within the framework of the action “tanz(t)räume“ (dreams of dance/spaces) funded by the TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund program. The presentations of the work in Athens take place within the framework of the exchange program “How to dance in times of crisis?” in collaboration with the urban non-profit company LUNA PARK ERGA with the support of the Greek-German Youth Foundation
AMINATION PARK PROJECTS
The urban non-profit cultural activities company LOUNA PARK ERGA was founded in Athens in 2002, by Kosmas Kosmopoulos, choreographer, educator, performer and curator of contemporary art works. Luna Park team consists of a group of artists belonging to different nationalities, as well as people working in the wider social and educational field. The main purpose of the group is the planning, production, organization and presentation of contemporary dance works and at the same time educational programs through which artistic research in the choreographic process and practice is promoted, in collaboration with other artistic organizations, mainly from Germany. LUNA PARK PROJECTS is managed by its founding members: the artist Dr. Georgia (Maggy) Touliatou, Kosmas Kosmopoulos and the composer of contemporary electronic music Antonio Palaska. In 2003, Kosmas Kosmopoulos founded the non-profit organization Initiative LUNA PARK e.V., which has been operating as an independent organization since 2019, based at Gesundbrunnen Primary School, in the Wedding district of Berlin. From the beginning, the two organizations have been working closely together on many jointly designed or co-financed projects. Since 2016, LUNA PARK PROJECTS and the organization Initiative LUNA PARK e.V. organize a series of intensive workshops, with the title “How to dance in times of crisis?”, held in Athens and Berlin. About twenty young artists from Greece and Germany, graduates or students of performing arts, dance and theater in particular, participate in the workshops. Among the individual goals of
of workshops is the exploration of contemporary compositional methods guided by team members and invited choreographers and dance theorists. Through the experiential technical seminars
of contemporary dance and improvisation, the lectures and discussions between the participants encourage the exchange of ideas about the conceptual content of dance in today’s social reality. The individual and collective creations of the young artists have been presented either on theater stages or in alternative stage spaces in Athens and Berlin. The cultural exchange programs are subsidized by the Hellenic German Youth Foundation to cover air tickets, accommodation and production. *For more information about the activities of the LUNA PARK team, you can visit the websites:
*For more information about the activities of the LUNA PARK team you can visit the following websites:
LUNA PARK Website
Luna Park Athens-Berlin Facebook
LUNA PARK Facebook
Instagram
Vimeo
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24 Apr—04 Jun
13 May—04 Jun