ANΩNYMO

PEAK Performances

Wiley Hausam | Director Camille Spaccavento | Marketing and Media Director Mike Steele | Company Manager Patrick Flood @ Flood Design | Graphic Designer | Art Director Blake Zidell Associates | Media Representative Martin Halo | Percy Cole Media, Website Development Abigail Pope | Marketing and Media Assistant Taliyah Bethea | Marketing and Administrative Assistant

College of the Arts Daniel Gurskis | Dean Ronald L. Sharps | Associate Dean Christine Lemesianou | Associate Dean Linda D. Davidson | Assistant Dean Zacrah S. Battle | College Administrator Christopher Kaczmarek | Chairperson, Department of Art and Design Anthony Mazzocchi | Director, John J. Cali School of Music Keith Strudler | Director, School of Communication and Media Randy Mugleston | Chairperson, Department of Theatre and Dance Wiley Hausam | Director, Arts + Cultural Programming Hillery Makatura | Director, Performance Operations Patricia Piroh | Director, Broadcast and Media Operations Megan C. Austin | Director, University Galleries

College of the Arts Performance Operations Hillery Makatura | Director Andrew Dickerson | Production Manager Colin Van Horn | Technical Director Kevin Johnson | Senior Production Engineer Gene Lotito | CART Facilities Director Laurel Brolly | Business Administrator Jason Flamos | Lighting Supervisor Emily Gocon, Dan Mackle, Joey Messana, Justin Stuart | Production Crew Stephanie Benjamin Flores | Wardrobe Supervisor Robert Hermida | Audience Services Director William Collins, Maureen Grimaldi | House Managers Jeff Lambert Wingfield | Box Office Manager Yazeed Alomar, Jabob Batory, Reyna Cortes, Susanne Oyedeji, Eliezer Ramirez, Rajvir Sidhu | Box Office Leads Susan R. Case | Program Copy Editor Bart Solenthaler | Program Layout Design

THE

2021/2022

SEASON

U.S. Premiere

ANΩNYMO

by Tzeni Argyriou

Arts + Cultural Programming produces PEAK Performances, which presents dance, music, theater, opera, and circus performances in the Alexander Kasser Theater, on the campus of Montclair State University, for students and the general public.

PEAK Plus captures live performances, making them accessible worldwide and drastically expanding audiences for new work. Through the Creative Thinking course, artists are engaged to participate in groundbreaking research, illustrating for students of all fields of study that art and science are symbiotic. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are longstanding core values. PEAK provides the highest-quality production values so that audiences have an opportunity to engage with creative viewpoints that are bold, insightful, and fully realized. PEAK Performances is credited with 60 world premieres, 57 US premieres, and 69 commissions.

Programs in this season were made possible, in part, by the Alexander Kasser Theater Endowment Fund, PEAK Patrons, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Photo by Lila Sotiriou

PEAK Performances gratefully acknowledges our student staff and volunteers.

May 4 I 5 I 6 I 7, 2023

Alexander Kasser Theater

Full program to be found at

@peakperfs

Wiley Hausam, Director, PEAK Performances Daniel Gurskis, Dean, College of the Arts

Program Notes

U.S. Premiere

ANΩNYMO takes the form of a physical ceremony, a contemporary ritual that recalls the power of bodies dancing together. Based on extensive research, the work draws from traditional folk dances from all over the world to articulate the social disconnect that has become all too familiar to many in recent times. The result is a celebration of human connection through shared joy and collective dance.

ANΩNYMO

by Tzeni Argyriou

Choreography and Concept Tzeni Argyriou Performers Chara Kotsali, Sotiria Koutsopetrou, Hermes Malkotsis, Konstantinos Papanikolaou, Stavroula Siamou, Nancy Stamatopoulou, Dimitris Sotiriou Dramaturgy Miguel Angel Melgares Original Music/Sound Design Pepe Garcia Rodriguez Scenography/Visual Concept Vassilis Gerodimos Lighting Adaptation, Design, and Engineer Vangelis Mountrichas Sound Engineer Vangelis Tsatsis Costumes Design Ioanna Tsami Choreographer’s Assistant Natalia Baka Production Manager/Executive Producer Konstantinos Sakkas Commissioned and Produced by Onassis Stegi (Greece) Co-produced by Rencontres chorégraphiques internationals De Seine Saint-Denis (France), Kalamata International Dance Festival (Greece) Research Support Duncan Dance Research Center Touring Support Onassis Stegi “Outward Turn” Program Touring and Production Management Delta Pi

Acknowledgments: Many thanks to the original cast members, substitute performers, production members, and contributors during the research and creation period, among them: Pavlina Andriopoulou, Danai Arsenia, Rallou Avramidou, Ilias Flammos, Danai Giannakopoulou, Amalia Kosma, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, Remco van der Meer, Dimitra Mertzani, Antonis Nikiforos, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Erato Tzavara, Antonis Vais, Anna Vakontiou, Marileni Vourtsi, and Alekos Yiannaros.

Duration: 70 minutes, no intermission In consideration of both audiences and performers, please turn off all electronic devices. The taking of photographs or videos and the use of recording equipment are not permitted. No food or drink is permitted in the theater.

The work invites the audience back to a time when art did not bear a creator’s name, but was a form of heritage that brought people closer and maintained social cohesion—the earliest rituals of initiation and participation. The first dances did not belong to anybody because they belonged to everybody. Someone made the first move, another picked it up, and step by step the different components formed a pattern. From one body to the next, dances moved through the centuries, accompanying every human ritual: weddings, death, war, peace.

The performance of ANΩNYMO at PEAK Performances is supported by the Onassis Stegi “Outward Turn” program.

About the Company Tzeni Argyriou (b. 1977, Kavala, Greece) is an independent choreographer and media artist.

She is a graduate of the National School of Dance, Athens (1995–98) and a scholar from the Onassis Foundation (New York 2000–02). During her stay in New York (2000–04) she collaborated as a performer with choreographers such as Chamecki Lerner, Bill Young, Maria Hassabi, Nina Winthrop, Jeremy Wade, Amanda Loulaki, and others, all the while creating and presenting her own individual projects.

Since 2003 Argyriou has been a founding member of Amorphy.org, a nonprofit company that supports the creation of multidisciplinary and hybrid art forms. For more than 10 years her interest has been to engage the performing arts with new technologies and other artistic genres, generating choreographic artworks. This work has often led to co-creations with local and international artists such as Vassilis Gerodimos, Miguel Angel Melgares, Ash Bulayev, and Euripides Laskaridis. One of her major interests is the creation of projects that suggest the active engagement of the audience.

After exploring the merging of media constructions with performative exploration, she has currently returned to the “analog” body and the empowerment of collective physical experiences.

Argyriou’s work varies from multimedia performances to in situ installations based on specific locations’ history. Some of her latest works are Eleusinio Kinima (2023), Praxis vs. Phrasis (2022), Συνομιλίες:Conversation (2022), Synthesis-movie (2022), Article 1, Test 1: An idea in progress (2022), Synthesis (2021), Identity in Between (2020), Phrasis to Go & Phrasis to Build (2020), Αποθέματα:Inventory (2018), ΑΝΩΝΥΜΟ (2018), Stigmiographies (2018), Face to Phase (2017), Untitled (2015), and Memorandum (2014).

Argyriou’s work has been presented and produced by renowned institutions and festivals such as EMST, Onassis Stegi, Cosmopolis Festival, the Athens Festival, Festival Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (France), Kalamata International Dance Festival (Greece), Spring Performing Arts Festival Utrecht (Netherlands), Benaki Museum, Athens (Greece), Kunstkapel Virtual Museum, Amsterdam (Netherlands), Fast Forward Festival– OCC (Greece), MIR Festival (Greece), Temps D’Images Festival at Tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf (Germany), Arc For Dance Festival (Greece), Judson Church at Movement Research NY (USA), and more. She has been an invited artist in residency at Greek and international art institutions (Germany, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Bulgaria), and has received support from EU Culture 2000, the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, the Non-Profit Organization NEON and Duncan Dance Research Center.

We respectfully acknowledge that Montclair State University occupies land in Lenapehoking, the traditional and expropriated territory of the Lenape. As a state institution, we recognize and support the sovereignty of New Jersey’s three state-recognized tribes: the Ramapough Lenape, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, and Powhatan Renape nations. We recognize the sovereign nations of the Lenape diaspora elsewhere in North America, as well as other Indigenous individuals and communities now residing in New Jersey. By offering this land acknowledgement, we commit to addressing the historical legacies of Indigenous dispossession and dismantling practices of erasure that persist today. We recognize the resilience and persistence of contemporary Indigenous communities and their role in educating all of us about justice, equity, and the stewardship of the land throughout the generations.