The second project in SHOWstudio's collaboration with the Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens centres around Christos Papadopoulos’s minimal, poetic dance piece. In Ion, ten dancers interact, evading and being drawn to one another, tracing paths determined by the unexplored mechanisms of nature.
Ion is based on a metaphor: the image of electronically charged atoms may reflect reality as it is shaped by people moving and interacting in space. Exploring the significance of this, SHOWstudio and the Onassis Cultural Centre curated a panel of experts chaired by Sebastian Anthony. The panel focused on kinetic behaviour and the drive to explore the relationship between the individual and society as a whole, and the variations of this relationship in nature and contemporary society.
Extracting moments from the minimal choreography orchestrated by Christos Papadopoulos, Nick Knight's film expands space and time. Art directed by Younji Ku, Ion sees Papadopoulos's ten dancers creating negative space in the echoes of their individual movements. The film explores group behaviour and the concept of the individual's role in a community. Opposing the reductive appearance of the dance piece, Knight's film displays the ways in which repetitive motion reveals new ways of inhabiting space.
Following their collaborative work on the film, Art Director Younji Ku interviews Papadopoulos in a conversation merging minds and crafts. Continuing the editorial aspect of the collaboration, Jessica Bumpus writes an essay exploring the kinetic human behaviours in fashion charting the ways mass markets emerge and people buy and shop as influenced by each other.
Director: Nick Knight
Choreographer: Christos Papadopoulos
Dancers: Georgios Kotsifakis, Ionna Paraskevopoulou, Nodas Damopoulos, Xara Kotsali, Amalia Kosma and Maria Bregianni
Art Direction: Younji Ku
Design Assistance: Tom Zambaz
Executive Producer: Charlotte Knight
Production Assistance: Mariana Caldeira
Production Runners: Zsófia Paulikóvics, Irene Frosinini and Hailey Pham
Photographic Assistance: Britt Lloyd, Rob Rusling, Tom Alexander, Rebecca Scheinberg and Lallie Doyle
Styling: Charlotte Roberts
Styling Assistance: Yamine Daaboul
Hair & Make-up Artist: Alexis Day
Hair & Make-up Assistance: Liz Patey
Behind the Scenes Imagery: Sean Connors
Lighting and Camera’s: Direct Digital
Location: Park Royal Studios
http://showstudio.com/project/ion
