It's not just a disco under the coconut trees. It's an initiation

04’27, Greece, 2021

Director and choreography: Anastasia Diga, Performers: Anastasia Diga, Alkisti Pogosian, Mata Afentouli, Camera: Roman Filiev, Edit: Anastasia Diga, Color correction: Roman Filiev, Music: Andreas Lemis, Make up: Marina Diga

“When shall I dance once more with bare feet the all-night dances, tossing my head for joy in the damp air..in the dew.. as a running fawn might frisk for the green joy of the wide fields, free from fear of the hunt, free from the circling beaters and the nets of woven mesh and the bunters hallooing on their yelping packs? And then, bard pressed, she sprints with the quickness of wind, bounding over the marsh, leaping to frisk, leaping for joy… to dance for joy in the forest, to dance where the darkness is deepest, where no man is.”Euripides, Bacchae

In all-night dances someday I will drag my foot like the Bacchae . Waving my neck in the cool breeze, like o roe …playing in the pleasant grassy forest, when it escapes from the dreadful hunter and the well-knitted nets and when by jumping the hunter makes his dogs run.
With labour and swift movements, it flees the plain which is by the riverside, happy, in places where people don’t reach, in a deep shady forest.

Dancing is a pleasure and an intoxication… and the cry of liberation… Three Bacchish figures are dancing frantically in an undefined location. An apartment of an old elite era. The waiting room of an old surgery.
They are dancing ecstatically, intoxicatingly, they disembody themselves within the solemn rage of the moment. Their dance is the reflection of human nature, the mirroring of its bipolar manifestation which sometimes calms down and others becomes ecstatic. 

Making of the film

The initial idea of the work was to convey the ecstasy and the freedom that dance has to offer to people – the drunkenness of freedom. As far as movement is concerned I wanted there to be a reference to the “rave” and “punk” stage, which themselves alone are a movement… a youthful outburst, the point where the participants try to escape even transitory from established normality. We started working with the performers on several movement patterns having in mind that repetition and development of the choreography would bring us closer to our animal instincts and the urge within the human from birth.  However, I had told them that while filming an ecstatic improvisation would be needed, an improvisation where they would lose themselves and in the tense of the moment express themselves without restriction. When filming had finished and I was at the point of editing watching the material again and again I realized that the scenes of improvisation were closer to what I was seeking. In that way, the work was built on improvisation and the choreography parts were put in between creating a sense of panic and chaos. As far as the camera is concerned, what I asked for was that while filming it was to become one with the performers. To move among us to capture any human and authentic movement and feeling that was to be created on the spot.

Music

The music was composed by Andreas Lemis, especially for my work. I had asked him to write a part with post-punk elements or even rave, explaining to him at the same time the feeling that I wanted the video to create. The outcome was much better than I had expected. With the performers, we created a choreography based on the music. Also, I worked on the whole video based on the rhythm of the music while editing.