My Fierce Ignorant Step | choreography Christos Papadopoulos, Music Kornilios Selamsis

A performance about the euphoria of being alive. Ten dancers create an ecstatic soundscape and the choreography emerging from it. Memories and listens, voices and bodies, all resonate like musical instruments, gradually building toward a shared exhilaration. The minimalist Greek choreographer’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.

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. A landscape that lives within us, travels with us, and allows us to instantly revisit a moment from the past that has never really passed. Everything is still here. Or at least, this is what the work explores: the truth of the youth, momentum, and courage; a truth that, if we consider it fleeting, quaint, or charming, will be forever lost—and along with it, the meaning of our world.

For the choreographer, the initial impulse for creating “My Fierce Ignorant Step” is rooted in the sonic memories of his childhood and youth that he shares with many other Greeks; these are collective memories tied to the fate of this country, even if that is not always visible. The work resists conformity with a cascade of forms, with an insatiable longing for the present, the future, and the past, with a desire for a life that is bold, laborious, and entirely humane, made of our fragile, insignificant flesh.

The work brings to the fore qualities that have always been present in Christos Papadopoulos’ oeuvre, but the emphasis shifts radically here. Specific themes and materials have concerned him from the beginning, but now they are clearly discernible and among them is the idea of “togetherness,” the simple initial point where both politics and love seem to appear. That is why the performers dance together in this work.

“The synchronization of multiplied movement occurs, but it is not the goal; we do not dance together because we are synchronized, but we synchronize because we are together. The system that emerges is not a priority, nor is beauty. These appear to be mechanisms that allow us to find one another, to exist, to meet, and to marvel at the energy that is born, multiplied, dispersed, and offered. There is a value that holds things together here. It is not faith in a system, a machine, or a trick, but a daring trust in the good,” notes Christos Papadopoulos.

27 & 28 June 2025 | Festival de Marseille, Marseille, 2 shows

2 & 3 July | Julidans, Amsterdam, 2 shows

12 & 13 July 2025 | Grec Festival, Barcelona, 2 shows

14-16 Nov 2025 | RomaEuropa, Rome, 3 shows

19 Nov 2025 | Fondazione I Teatri, Reggio Emilia 1 show

22 & 23 Nov 2025 | Festival Otono, Madrid,  2 shows

3 Dec 2025 | December Dance - Concertgebouw, Bruges 1 show

• Concept & Choreography

  Christos Papadopoulos

• Dancing and collaborating

  Themis Andreoulaki, Maria Bregianni, Amalia Kosma, Georgios Kotsifakis, Sotiria Koutsopetrou, Tasos Nikas, Spyros Ntogas, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Danae Pazirgiannidi, Adonis Vais

• Dramaturgy Consultant

  Alexandros Mistriotis

• Original Music

  Kornilios Selamsis

• Associate Composer

  Jeph Vanger

• Set Design

  Clio Boboti

• Costumes Design

  Maria Panourgia

• Lighting Design

  Stefanos Drousiotis

• Vocal Training

  Apostolis Psichramis

• Assistant to the Choreographer

  Sevasti Zafeira

• Assistant to the Set Designer

  Aggeliki Vasilopoulou-Kampitsi

• Assistant to the Costumes Designer

  Panayiotis Renieris

• Coordination and Line production

  Zoe Mouschi – Rena Andreadaki

• Tour Lighting Head

  Alexandros Mavridis

• Tour Set Manager

  Marilena Kalaitzantonaki & Aggeliki Vasilopoulou-Kampitsi

• Sound Engineer

  Kostis Pavlopoulos

• Tour Manager

  Konstantina Papadopoulou

• A project by

  Christos Papadopoulos // The Lion and the Wolf

• Special thanks to

  Euripides Laskaridis, Sotiris Melanos and Filanthi Bougatsou

• 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 / Scène nationale (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) & more to be announced soon