Voutsara 6
11855 Athens
Grèce
- Arts
PLAYGROUND for the arts is the center of an intercultural community of artists, students and public interested in performing arts, with an emphasis on rhythm studies and research. Our resident artists utilize PLAYGROUND’s facilities and services and are active artistically in an environment willing to highlight their work and promote new networking opportunities in Greece and abroad. We are currently hosting 10 performing arts artists while more than 80 artists have collaborated with us in the last 7 years. Our operation is based on the “ARTISTIC HUB”, a contemporary residency model we created which enhances artistic activities, offering long or short-term residencies to artists and art groups. The members of ARTISTIC HUB utilise our facilities and services and are active artistically in an environment willing to highlight their work and promote new networking opportunities in Greece and abroad. We partner with various private and public non-profit entities and invite our collaborators to experience a collective-cooperative, horizontal organisation. We have limited sources of funding every year, mostly coming from students' monthly registration fees, project-based sponsorships from civil society initiatives and European funding, such as Erasmus+ and more. Our partners are from freelance artists to grassroots organisation to the National Opera. All of our partners contribute to the sustainability of PLAYGROUND and benefit from the networking opportunities we provide them as an artistic centre.
PLAGROUND was founded by Yiota Peklari, Thanos Daskalopoulos and Petros Kourtis, artists coming from diverse backgrounds (Flamenco - Tap dance - Percussion - Ballet - Contemporary dance - Body Music), with the mission to create bridges between disciplines and build an educational environment of collaboration, cross-training and inclusivity. Our philosophy is based on the development of skills through embodied practices, the discovery and evolution of the individual voice of the performer and the support of experimentation. Since 2009 we have been designing and implementing educational programs for adults and children, people with or without disabilities, senior citizens, migrant and refugee communities, professionals and amateurs, organizing festivals, performances, concerts and open jams. Our activities have developed a network of internationally acclaimed artists and educators, award-winning pioneers in their fields, with whom we collaborate regularly and often have the pleasure to host in our center in Athens. Our mission is to foster a healthy and diversified artistic education for all ages, as well as an ethical and multisensory performance aesthetic in order to reach as many people as possible through our universal language: rhythm.
Our current main projects are: 1. B[l]alloon, a multisensory, inclusive and accessible body music performance, 2. Moving Soundscapes, a 3-month collaboration with the Greek National Opera where junior high and highschool students from general schools, artistic schools and schools for deaf teenagers come together through a common rhythmic knowledge, and 3. International Body Music Festival, which includes 7 days full of workshops, shows, educational programmes, screenings and concerts. Artistic director Keith Terry in collaboration with PLAYGROUND for the arts will co-curate the content of the next full length IBMF that will include a rich cross-cultural range of traditional and contemporary works of music and dance related to the art of Body Music. Artistic Director Keith Terry curates IBMF programs to encompass a cross-cultural range of traditional and contemporary works that include composition and choreography.
We would like to join the Greek Network of the ALF in order to contribute to the intereting consortium through our expertise in artistic production and international collaborations that promote diversity, multiculturalism, exchange, and embodied practices. We have the tools to showcase to our partners how performing arts are not only for entertainment , talent and skill, but are also a great resource for civil society through peacful interaction, cross-cultural cooperation, human connection, non-verbal interaction and multisensory knowledge production. We would also want to contribute to ALF's resource center, especially in the areas of education, culture and youth.
We would be honoured to be part of the prestigious ALF Netowork because it has the unique character of wanting to bring civil society together with arts & culture, as well as fostering genuine networking and community on an international as well as a regional level. We want to obtain further knowldge on cultural management and feel motivated and supported to empower our next generation.