Athina Vahla

Athina Vahla is an independent multidisciplinary artist, researcher and
lecturer specialising in choreography and producing work internationally across the UK, Europe, South Africa, Mexico, and East Asia Arts.

Vahla has created and managed large-scale, site-specific works supported by Arts Council England, and for the Infecting the City Festival in Cape Town, supported by the British Council, and the Creek Embassy. Commissioned works also include the Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool, ICA, Science Museum, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Festival Hall, CandoCo Dance Company, the London Olympics 2012 and the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Japan. Collaboration is central to her work. Underpinning her process is a concern with humanism, and contemporary society.

Athina works as a lecturer at Central St Martins University of Arts, London College of Fashion, London Contemporary Dance School and Mountview College, in London UK. She has taught extensively at Trinity Laban, Westminster University, London Metropolitan University, Reading University, London Studio Centre, Birkbeck College, Candoco Dance Company, Graeae and Dance North Scotland. Her international teaching associations include, the Rhodes University in South Africa, the State School of Dance in Greece, Kairos in Venice, Dance House in Cyprus, Ladinamo Danza in Madrid, Le Centre de Formation in Brussels, Hong- Kong Academy of Performing Arts, Tottori University in Japan, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Since 2013, Athina has been an honorary research associate to the Drama department of Rhodes University in South Africa.

Vahla holds a PhD by Public Works and a Masters in Choreography, awarded by Middlesex University, London UK.

Athina continues to update her choreographic practice through collaborative projects, research and creative exchanges around the world.

Some of Vahla's areas of research and interest include:

The merging of Sports and Theatre into performance events in which both practices coexist, and a new performance hybrid emerges.

The performativity of academic knowledge.

Collaborative practice per se, as a way of building sustainable communities, bridging cultures, and finding the connections between seemingly different areas of practice.

Empty space – MA in Japanese Art across performance genres, landscape painting and the martial arts, as a way of investigating form beyond the established Western modes in visual arts.