Elix Dance Company has a short history as a performance dance group. It represents Christina Klissiouni’s artistic work that she calls “Connecting Free Space”. She explores and forms material from the inner wisdom, imagination, movement vocabulary, vocal expression, presence, playfulness and turbulations of the performers that she collaborates with and her own processing in life. The helix, the 3-dimentional spiral along the central axis represents her vision towards continuous evolution and freedom based on consciousness, insight, clarity, simplicity, personal strength, authenticity and integrity, cultivated through mindfulness of the body, of speech, of the heart .

Inspired by a 19th century photo in the rice fields of Japan, Christina based the theme of the work on 4 qualities/poetic images of the water and its kinesthetic, emotional, energetic reflections inside and outside of ourselves. She worked with 4 young performers from dance and theater background and developed one hour dance performance “In the Well of Dawn” performed at Ergostasio in Athens, May 1993 after months of rehearsals and training of the dancers in Contact Improvisation skills and Release technique that was very new at the time in the dance world of Athens. The work was totally choreographed. It evolved through experimentation, improvisation based on concepts and imagery without music support. The movement vocabulary came as a synthesis of the idiosyncrasy of the performers that improvised and the choreographer’s vision too. The other members of the group were Penelope Iliaskou, Irene Mintza, Dimitris Mareskas and Thanasis Efthimiadis(actor). Part of the music was originally composed for the performance by Haris Vrondos. The work was partially funded by the Ministry of Culture , by Ioannis Kostopoulos Foundation and the choreographer herself.

In May 1994, the group performed this piece together with 2 other pieces, two duets. The work “Knots and Roses I ” was based on Contact Improvisation (structured improvisation) and ideas that came up from the choreography “Knots and Roses II” that followed. We structured space with a wooden ladder that was hanging from the ceiling and roses as props and used music from various sources. It was a 30 minute duet performed by Francis Savage from USA and Christina Klissiouni. We explored male and female inner space, their means of communication, the common play of pull, reach, push and yield, their negotiations and dialogue around boundaries, the need for liberation and acceptance, as a reflection of a man-woman journey on stage. The second part “Knots and Roses II” presented a choreography performed by Lily Triandari and Christina Klissiouni exploring communication patterns and poetry in the female space, woman’s need for transcendence, love and beauty and her ways to connect with the subconscious and the dream world, uniting darkness and light inside herself. While the work was not funded by the Ministry of Culture, and we received support that covered a small part of the production by Ioannis Kostopoulos Foundation only, the choreographer stopped producing bigger productions for a few years since then.

that explored material from Greek and Indonesian mythology and archetypes, created an atmosphere of ritualistic theater dance with meditative movement, live music, singing, praying, puppet shadow theater with an amazing Sufi puppet shadow master from Indonesia Slamet Gundono. The stage was structured with 8 pillars formed by sand falling continuously from the ceiling giving the image of a temple, 2 slide projections from ancient Greek art work, beautiful lighting and the magic of puppet shadow theater narration of stories from Javanese mythology. We applied for funding to the Ministry of Culture but there was no positive response again so this piece has never been presented in Greece.

In November 2001, Christina Klissiouni performed a solo dance at International Solo Festival in St.Petersburg based on the initial concept of this piece. In April 2002, the work was presented at Hania, Kreta island supported by the Municipality and Effie Kaloutsi dance studio. In December 2002, the work was performed at Teatro Vascello in Rome and in May 2003, it was presented in Athens as part of the dance festival This piece was made for three women, the choreographer was inspired by the myth of Persephone and Demeter. In the work, we connect authentic movement, contact improvisation, release work and meditation to create dance poetry.

Since then, Christina Klissiouni has undertaken the project to renovate an old space and organize a small cultural center. Her vision is to open up her own studio to offer classes and present improvisation performances in small groups in the heart of Athens.