Sessions

Contribute to Sessions’ archive!

From dance and theatre performances to Q***r Wave to concerts, book readings, screenings, workshops and parties, it's simpler to tell what Sessions does rather than what Sessions is. To document Sessions x SPEL as a happening, we are crafting a chronological assemblage of documents from all sessions in the form of a book, including images, texts, reflections, notes, and performance artifacts, including everything from the backstage to the center stage.

In order to do this, we are collecting material, and we invite you to contribute to this archive.

Submit your photos & videos
1. Click on the link in bio and choose Upload my Photos.
2. Create a folder with your name on the Google Drive folder.
3. Upload your photos.

You can send us any text, a reflection, a comment, a story to our email [email protected] (5 x ”s”). There is no limit to what you can write.

Deadline: Wednesday, January 10th 2024

The material submitted may or may not be published in the book or in other form by the team of Sessions, with the credit of the creator.

Thank you!

*photo of the traces of the performance THIRAMA by Alexis Vassiliou, Dec 9th, 2023

THURSDAY, 28.12, 22:30, Late Session #6
“Waters of Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt” by Stavros S. Karayanni

Dance embodies not only what seems obvious and apparent but what flows surreptitiously in the fissures that open as ideology erodes emotion. The movement that intrigues me is fuelled by this flow and seeks to gesture towards that which is proscribed.  Censure collects in the body and transforms into sediments that are very often emotional: forbidden desires, wanting to love where you are taught to hate, resistance to normalization, the trauma of improper longings.  Movement is also directly connected to Memory and movement (and choreography) may function as story telling – a narrative of the body’s remembered but also unconscious history, a fluid and kinaesthetic record of the body.   While investigating Body and Memory this presentation poses questions that have to do with how we understand Memory in terms of ideology and in terms of the body; how we are able to dance our body’s narrative, and how we can attain an embodiment of desire as both a life-affirming force and a sorrowful loss.  And always the movement, carrying a body that is lightened by the exuberance of self discovery and heavied by the promise of deliverance just as the Memory springs forth like an oracle from the future to prophesy the past.

Stavros Karayanni publishes on culture, gender, and sexuality in the Middle East. His book Dancing Fear and Desire: Race, Sexuality and Imperial Politics in Middle Eastern Dance (Wilfrid Laurier UP 2004, reprinted 2005, 2007, 2010) reveals the intricate ways in which the present tradition of this controversial dance has been shaped by Eurocentric models that define and control identity performance. He teaches English Literature and Cultural Theory at European University Cyprus.

The performance will be the last Late Session presented after the last Cloud Transmission hosted by Ayios Loizos, on December 28th, at 22:30. The Late Sessions serve as a platform to facilitate the realisation of spontaneous  ideas and/or ideas that are best presented as surprises.

Half of our pre-sale tickets have already been claimed! We appreciate your enthusiastic response. Thank you!

In our effort to maintain Sessions a safer and welcoming space, we are limiting and pre-selling tickets for the Xmas Eve and New Year's Eve events exclusively at SPEL. This ensures that they are initially made available within our extensive community network. We also prefer not to burden someone with the task of handling ticket sales on these special nights, and since the NYE party marks our final event, we would appreciate spending it with dedicated sessionistas!

Help us in making these gatherings memorable, ensuring that we all safely immerse ourselves in the night and celebrate the conclusion of the past six months in each other's loving company, by purchasing your tickets early ✨ 

24.12, 20:30, Sessionmas Eve with A Man to Pet, €5
31.12, 00:00, CLOSING: DISCONNECTION SUCKS, €10

Available at the State Gallery of Contemporary Art - SPEL, Tues-Sat 12:00-22:00

FRI 29.12 16:00-00:00 Last Session: Pista Caca-Dada-Booboo

As Sessions x SPEL comes to a closure, we invite you to join us for one last jam at Pista Cacophonias. From 16:00 until midnight, we invite you to ride the waves of improvisation together with us and invited musicians, allowing for all that there is to be expressed to find its place. Videos and instagram stories will be collected on the spot, and edited live by Aggelos Charalambous. The 8-hour long sound recording and the video montage created by all of us on the day, will mark Sessions’ second collectively made movie.

No experience or preparation is needed.

Free participation.