The minimalist Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos’s new work explores how movement becomes a song, one in which the dancers’ bodies pulsate—and through them, potentially, the bodies of the audience. An optimistic, extroverted, and enchanting new work about the first times we met, laughed, lived. About our passionate beginnings. 

Christos Papadopoulos presents his most personal work yet, connecting for the first time the materiality of sound with the musicality of the body. In his new work, a plural body pulsates on stage, marching with eyes wide open to what lies ahead. Its breath becomes a voice that guides the steps: sometimes big, other times small, but always firm and determined, almost carefree. The dancers’ bodies breathe; their breaths become sounds that turn into voices and movements, a galloping that constantly swells.

In “My Fierce Ignorant Step,” Papadopoulos seeks to consciously process the influence that the monumental musical work “Axion Esti” by Mikis Theodorakis, set to the poetry of Odysseas Elytis, has had on him, as a collective memory activated through listens. The subject is not the music itself but the shared landscape it evokes.

Trained in the Netherlands and Greece, Christos Papadopoulos has been teaching movement and improvisation at the Athens Conservatoire’s drama school since 2003. After working as a choreographer with several stage directors, in 2016 and 2017 he created his first original pieces, which soon earned him national and international acclaim. He was a member of the choreography teams for the opening ceremony of the 2015 European Games in Baku and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Olympics in Athens. His Elvedon was chosen for the Aerowaves’16 European circuit, and his next production, Opus, took him to Aerowaves’18. In 2018, he premiered ION, a commission from Onassis Stegi that was co-produced by Théâtre de la Ville, in Paris, and Le Lieu Unique, in Nantes. Larsen C, created in 2021, was performed at over 25 European festivals and venues, including the 2022 Barcelona Grec Festival. This choreography earned him the prestigious Rose International Dance Prize, a biennial award given by London’s temple of dance, Sadler’s Wells. Recent choreographies include Mellowing, created for the Dance On company, and Mycelium for the Lyon Opera Ballet, which premiered at the Lyon Dance Biennale.

A project by Christos Papadopoulos & The Lion And The Wolf

Commissioned & produced by Onassis Stegi

With the support of dance reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels

Co-Producers: Théâtre De La Ville (Paris, France), Julidans (The Netherlands), Romaeuropa Festival (Italy), Théâtre D'orléans (France), Lac Lugano Arte E Cultura (Switzerland), December Dance Concertgebouw Brugge (Belgium), One Dance Festival (Bulgaria), Festival De Marseille (France), I Teatri Di Reggio Emilia (Italy) & others (TBA).

Supported by the Onassis Stegi Touring Program.

Christos Papadopoulos with “My Fierce Ignorant Step” is nominated for the Fedora Van Cleef & Arpels dance prize 2025.

With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.