Thoughts about identity
My personal development as an artist
and individual has been affected by the evolution of ideas about identity and
globalization. As a Greek choreographer I am always interested in examining a
wide range of issues such as individuality, oppression and restrictions in our
social framework, the pain of- personal or forced- exile and the current
political and cultural crisis. Common element of all these issues is the
following question: Who and what determines the term identity?
Until some decades ago, it seemed quite
obvious that identity was defined by the concept of nation states. In this
case, identity could be characterized as national and it was usually perceived
as the common share of a series of values between people of a certain
territorial space. Language, history, culture, religion and common experiences
could and still be regarded as the basic elements of people’s identity. Despite
the fact that the procedure of globalization nowadays seems to question the
conventional definition of space and the concept of identity, people in periods
of crisis tend to move “backwards”, in order to find their original routes.
This kind of “movement”, as a symptom of radicalization, sometimes can be
interpreted as a collective submergence to the common past.
After many years of working with different
people all over the world, I have experienced “movement” not only as a physical
term, but also as a geographical and political term. From the one hand, travelling
from Europe to Asia and from America to North Africa and the Middle East, I
came to a strong realization that identity is not necessarily determined inside
the strict framework of space and place. Move-ability and e-motion do not know
borders. On the other hand, no matter where we travel, our identity travels
along with us, within our bodies. It is a “topos” ( Greek work for the term
land) we keep going back to, an archive
we draw from and upon, which needs to be researched in order to be able to keep
on going.
The physicality of body and the human
emotions are the strong bonds that connect all different nations, identities and
cultures. The definition of new commonly shared values among the artists
generates a new kind of identity. The pain of the body, the excitement of
creativity, the need for inspiration and the importance of exploring new places
(existing or non-existing) are the same throughout the world of an artist.
These elements tend to construct a new kind of identity away from the
conventional concepts. This identity is not exclusive, as the most of
identities seem to be, but it is quite open and sometimes even abstract, in the
sense that it can potentially include all people.
Each nation has different
characteristics in its movements, like the way of walking, dancing and standing.
But this kind of identity can be easily affected through the interaction with
other people. In a world that is moving extremely fast, are we aware of our
identity? Is our identity travelling with us? How do we find who we really are?
Only inside movement, we may finally
find who we really are… 