IT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE

  • Dance & performance
  • Recommended age: 14+
  • Language: English

45 min.

Info

In a dance marathon that spans the historical continuum, three women*  regress between personal and collective history.

Focusing on the dancing body and using sound and poetry as its materials, the piece grapples with the notion of progress as the most exhausting linear narrative. In the wake of a technological and social revolution that ultimately did not happen, “ΙT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE” attempts to speak of the present’s emotional history.

Three  dancers interact on stage with the past that lies ahead of us and the future we have left behind. They engage in a dance that exhausts their emotional and physical resources. It is a choreography about the ambivalent relationship of the individual and collective body with history, about the link between progress and destruction, about dances of fun, pleasure, and propaganda.

Choreographer’s Note

Broadcasting from a place in the South that has never sent a rocket into Space and grew old with slow internet, I wish to compose a messy kinetic and sonic chronology of the collective feeling created by launching into Space and simultaneously diving into cyberspace for bodies floating like space debris, for spectacle as the most durable fetish.

I draw inspiration from the dialectical relationship between continuity and discontinuity in how history is portrayed, discussed, and experienced. I experiment with both forms of linear flow (the cinematic single-cam setup, the musical ison, timeline) and discontinuity (collage, mashup, and medley).

“ΙT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE” is not another eschatology for use, nor is it another declaration of nostalgia for an exoticized past, but rather an acknowledgement that the experiment has thankfully failed. The end of the world has not yet come, and certainly not the end of history. The poetics of vertigo emerges as the most tender gesture in this hour of the fall.
– Chara Kotsali

Disclaimer

The performance includes loud music, strobe lighting, and some vulgar language. There is no nudity, sexual content, or violence.

Concept, Choreography, Text: Chara Kotsali
Performance & Material Co-creation: Sofia Pouchtou, Christina Skoutela, Chara Kotsali
Assistant Choreographer: Vassia Zorbali
2nd Assistant Choreographer: Clara Aguilar
Sound Design & Music: Anna Maria Rammou, Chara Kotsali
Set & Costume Design: Periklis Pravitas
Lighting Design: Eliza Alexandropoulou
Tour Lighting Design: Ioanna Athanasiou
Dramaturgy Consultant: Dimitra Mitropoulou
External Eye: Κοnstantina Georgelou
Line Production: TooFarEast & Chara Kotsali
Tour Production: Chara Kotsali
International Development & Touring: Εckhard Thiemann

Produced by Onassis Stegi

Biography

Chara Kotsali is a dance maker, performer and educator based in Greece.Working across choreography, performance, anthropology, writing and music, she develops choreographic works that draw on documentary practices and explore the relationship between bodies, history and contemporary political realities. Her dance combines movement, voice, text and musicality to create performances that negotiate between personal experience, collective memory and fiction. 
She completed her professional dance training at Rallou Manou Professional School of Dance and holds a BA in Theatre Studies and an MA in Social and Cultural Anthropology. She also trained as a drummer at Modern Music School. Kotsali teaches contemporary dance at Rallou Manou Professional School of Dance and Marmarinou Professional Dance School, and has been invited as a guest teacher and choreographer at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD) and festivals across Europe.
Her work has been presented internationally at festivals and venues across Europe and beyond. Her latest work, IT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE, was selected for Aerowaves Twenty26 and Moving Balkans 2026, and has been nominated for the Bloom Prize of the Sadler’s Wells Rose International Dance Prize 2027. Previously, she was selected as an Aerowaves Twenty24 artist.
Alongside her choreographic practice, she has collaborated as a performer with, among others, Christos Papadopoulos, Euripides Laskaridis, Patricia Apergi, Iris Karayan, Sofia Mavragani, Tzeni Argyriou, Argyro Chioti, Dimitra Trypani, and Ermira Goro. She also works as a movement director for theatre and, in 2023, received the Greek Critics Association Award for Best Theatre Choreography for The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, directed by Aris Biniaris.
Education, facilitation, and writing form an integral part of her practice. She develops workshops and long-term participatory projects in diverse contexts, including the Women’s Prison of Eleonas in Greece, and writes for yusra magazine. 

The research for IT’S THE END OF THE AMUSEMENT PHASE was supported by Onassis AiR and Réseau Grand Luxe. Special thanks to TROIS C-L Luxembourg, CAMPUS Paulo Cunha e Silva (Porto), Grand Studio Brussels, and L’Abri Geneva .
The presentation of the Performance was supported by Onassis Stegi Touring Program  
Special thanks for its financial support of the performance to Embassy of Greece in Bucharest and Hellenic-Romanian Bilateral Chamber of Commerce (HRCC). 
Under the auspices of the Embassy of Greece in Romania.

Performance presented within the Moving Balkans Program, co-funded by Creative Europe.
*The views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the funding authority can be held responsible for them.

Iridescent 2026 Partners

Institutional Partners
Ministry of Culture · Aerowaves · Moving Balkans · European Union · Onassis Stegi · Greek Embassy in Bucharest · Hellenic Union of Romania · Italian Cultural Institute in Bucharest · MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art of Romania · “I.L. Caragiale” National Theater · “Grigore Antipa” National Museum of Natural History

Cultural Partners
LINOTIP – Independent Choreographic Center · /SAC @ Berthelot & Malmaison · Tangaj Collective Association · Cărturești · Cinema Union · Terapie Pentru Mișcare · Petec Association · O2G Association · Theaters

Main Media Partner
Radio Guerrilla

Media Partners
Zile și Nopți · Matca Magazine · Scena Magazine · Arta Magazine · ELLE · TVR Cultural · Munteanu Recomandă · AGERPRES · VisitBucharest · Radio România Cultural · Haute Culture · Liternet · The Institute · Ceașca de Cultură · Daily Magazine · Modernism · Zeppelin · Iscoada · B-Critic · România Pozitivă

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.