U(R)TOPIAS

by Patricia Apergi and Aerites Dance Company

Utopia is described as an imagined community or society that possesses desirable, nearly perfect qualities for its citizens. Originally he word comes from Greek, οὐ meaning “not” and τόπος “place” and means than “no-place”. Apergi would like to redefine this place and make it exist. She aims to reinvent the utopia of today departing from archives and memories, with the knowledge of the past. On that point that utopia becomes according to her ur-topia. The prefix -ur means ancient, primitive, the original. Ur-topia symbolises the aim to define a new utopia today, reinvented through the past as an objective for tomorrow. According to contemporary history, the utopias created on the 20th century were rejecting the past in order to create something new, in order to propose pioneering ideas that could lead to an “effective” revolution. But they failed. On the ongoing contemporary crises of ideology, the ur-topia is proposed as a project, a dream, an idea on which we will work together. The team will focus on political movements of the 20th century, on the reasons why it failed, and will try to invent a successful utopia in order to dance it.

The company was established by Patricia Apergi in April 2006. The art of dance, in the case of Aerites, is not only about “morphology”, type of ‘’movement” or “means of expression”. The group focuses on experimenting and producing performances based on theoretical, dramaturgic and movement research. The aim of Aerites Dance Company is to create artistic actions as a result of the synergy between dance, performing arts, poetry, theatrical practice and new technology. With the work d.ΟPΑ! (dopamines of post-Athenians), Aerites were chosen by the Greek General Secretariat for Youth to represent Greece at the 14th Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (Skopjie, 2009). d.OPA came in 1st and was selected to take part in the 4th Platform for Contemporary Dance at the prestigious Athens Concert Hall (2010). In 2010, Aerites Dance Company was also selected among the top ten “priority” dance companies of Aerowaves in London.