Athina Vahla : Artistic Trajectory & Selected Practice
I am a choreographer based in London. Over the past twenty-five years my practice has explored conflict, embodiment and collective encounter through choreography, participatory performance and international collaboration. The examples below illustrate key moments that have informed my current enquiry into cultural transmission, listening and intercultural choreographic practice.
Splinter in the Flesh (2010)
Developed at The Place in London, and originally commissioned as a work in progress by British Council, Greece and Isadora Duncan Institute, Splinter in the Flesh was further developed by the Hellenic Dance Company at the State School of Dance, Athens and premiered at the Athens Music Hall in December 2010. The full-length work was the final stage of a three-year project based on the idea of identity and otherness using Flamenco and martial arts. The theatre stage was transformed in a gladiatorial caged arena and the theme of "fight or flight" became the metaphor for human consciousness and its consequences.
Interdisciplinary Encounters (2011-2013)
In 2011, I was invited to South Africa to take part in the Infecting the City festival, Cape Town which led to a visiting lectureship at Rhodes University, Eastern Cape, where I had time and space to develop my research-led, participatory and socially engaged approach working with students, professional performers and the local community. Over two years, I conceived and curated a series of rough-hewn interdisciplinary events working with sports, game theory and task-based actions.
Agon (2009-2018)
Between 2009 - 2018, I created a number of productions investigating the Greek concept of agon with boxing-based performances in the UK and South Africa. These boxing works developed over several years and formed part of the hybrid performances I named sport-theatre. Fight Club (2009) and In the Ring (2014) bookend the boxing projects.
Fight Club (2009)
A Homelands commission for Chisenhale Dance Space. I collaborated with a dancer, dance scientist, a boxer and his trainer from Repton Boys Boxing Club to investigate boxing training. The team worked together in a short, risk-taking process that looked at transforming elements of boxing training into performative action.
In the Ring (2014)
​This work was funded by SAHUDA and Lineages of Freedom and was part of a larger project entitled Conflict and Catharsis in Boxing and Performance. Premiered at Box Theatre, Grahamstown, South Africa, the performance comprised a boxing training session, the boxing bout and its aftermath. It was an interdisciplinary work of Sport Theatre, in which professional boxers and dancers performed together to create a new hybrid form of theatre. I subsequently presented a paper titled Defending Boxing Performing the Agon at the Performance Studies International Conference, Shanghai Theatre Academy in July 2014.
Collaborations with Kyo and Oki Islands project (2018-2020)
My collaboration with Yuko Ijichi and her integrated dance company Kyo, began in 2018 when I was introduced by Adam Benjamin, who I had first worked with at Candoco. Together, Yuko and I began to explore how traditional Japanese dance and theatre could be reinterpreted within contemporary performance while preserving its cultural integrity.
This work developed a model for "transitioning tradition" from within - working directly from source materials so that the core of the original forms remains intact while enabling contemporary reinterpretation. The resulting performance, informed by movement, rhythm, spatial patterns, and the historical and social contexts of the dances, premiered on the Oki Islands and at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in February 2020 just before the world went into lockdown.
Ekkyklema (2019)
The performance was a dance and visual poem based on the notion of the aftermath across cultures. An ekkyklêma in the ancient Greek theatre was a stage platform on wheels that carried the dead bodies on stage representing a tragic event through its aftermath.
Letter from Oki (2020)
This performance was the final stage of a research project on local Japanese folk dance. It developed from Kinya Monya, a performance output created for the Amacho Festival, Oki Islands.
This residency in Japan marked a significant shift in my thinking. Rather than focusing on conflict and resistance, I became interested in questions of cultural transmission, listening, reciprocity and the social life of traditional dance practices.
E-0923 (2024)
For many years, I have been preoccupied with rituals of preparation, with pre-performance routines as performances in themselves. E-0923 began in collaboration with dancer and dance scientist Emma Redding at Laban and was first performed at the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science conference in Washington DC in 2011. Several iterations followed. These experimental works were shaped through dialogue with an array of collaborators, including medical doctor Sara Chin, sound artist Neil Luck, sports scientist Matt Wyon and dance scientist Sonia Rafferty.
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Our final studio rehearsal in Melbourne (2023) was spontaneously captured on film by filmmaker Andrew O’Keefe and later accompanied by an original sound composition by Mark Pollard. The film traces Emma’s persistence in the act of training - labouring and fatiguing, interweaving fitness practice with moments of intimacy and vulnerability.
The Gym (2026)
The culmination of many years of research exploring fitness, training and physical endurance. Part manifesto, part reflection, part artwork, this publication exists as an Image-Text-Performance: a gesture that makes visible a process evolving over many years.
An enquiry that originally moved through sporting spaces shaped by conflict, contest and physical negotiation – boxing rings, football fields, dojos, and fitness studios – where bodies were trained, tested and shaped through physical practice, as well as wider cultural and political forces. This final publication was supported by a research grant through Central St Martins, UAL in partnership with BETTER Gyms, Camden.
Why the DYCP now?
The proposed DYCP project builds directly on these experiences and represents the next stage in a long-term shift from agonism and conflict towards methodologies of listening, stillness and the gaps between.
Discussing the DYCP application with Ah Seong Kim in London.
A studio demonstration of the South Korean Dance Salpuri performed by Ah Seong Kim.
An exploration with Ah Seong Kim in the studio at Central St Martins.