The Golden Age
conception, direction, choreography: Konstantinos Rigos
costume design: Ioanna Tsami
art installation: Petros Touloudis
lighting design: Christos Tziogas
duration: 70’
premiere: Belgrade Dance Festival, 2025
dancers: Vangelis Bikos, Stelios Katwpodis, Manex Alberti, Giannis Gkantsios, Elena Kekkou, Marita Nikolitsa, Daniele Pecorari, Stefano Pietragalla, Kaito Takahasi, George Chatzopoulos, Despina Chrysostomou, Ariadni Filippaki
“The Golden Age” – a reference to the legendary “Bossa Nova” performance he presented at the National Theatre of Greece in 2008 –, does not point to a specific time period. Instead it could be described as an emotional mixtape of Rigos’ 35-year journey in the world of dance, where the concepts of irony and nostalgia emerge as identical. From the National School of Dance (KSOT) to the peak of the Greek dance scene in the 1990s and the Oktana Dance Theatre, the National Theatre of Northern Greece, the National Theatre of Greece, the Athens Festival, and the Greek National Opera, Konstantinos Rigos’ iconoclastic artistic imprint transcends the confines of dance, sparking a dialogue with the other art forms intersecting with it. His artistic identity remains restless, subversive, provocative, poignant, but at the same time also corny and nostalgic.
Looking back on the performances he has created from 1990 to the present day, Rigos notes: “A golden age, a new wave will sweep everything away, images from the past or the future, thoughts about love, faith, absence, and abandonment. The person and the place. Are we dressed or naked, like the emperor? Are we free or besieged? Are we God’s marionettes or travellers into the winter, always carrying inside of us the summer nights? Within a ring, we fight with our own selves or our own shadows, in both dark and clear blue lakes. Do we live in the Neverland, utopian Arcadias, enchanted Cithaerons, utopias, or in invisible cities? Events that have left a lasting impact on our lives and humanity, a mixtape of music and songs played on gramophones, reels, record players, Walkmans, and boomboxes, along with a small orchestra accompanying, just like in Titanic, the perishing humanity. A musical Babel. Are we looking for peace or a piece of “America”? What is this white noise surrounding us? Perhaps, it’s a wind that blows away these 35 creative years, exceeding the boundaries of thought, movement, performance, and physical constraints. Besides the body remembers! Once I had encountered a sad scuba diver. He talked to me about wild happiness that resembles the sleeping beauty lying within us, ready to burst forth after an abrupt release in a hotel where the seasons drift past us. And finally we go back to the initial question: are you coming along on the excursion? Happy End”.
Konstantinos Rigos
Born in Athens, Konstantinos Rigos studied economics and graduated from the Greek National School of Dance. In 1990, he founded the Oktana Dancetheatre, many productions of which have toured internationally. His shows have been featured in over 40 international festivals in many cities around the world as well as in Greece (Athens Concert Hall, Thessaloniki Concert Hall, National Theatre of Greece, National Theatre of Northern Greece, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Greek National Opera, Cyprus Theatre Organisation, Piraeus Municipal Theatre, Odeon of Herodes Atticus, etc). He has been awarded the Greek State Award for Dance (1995, 1996), the Greek State Award for Choreography (1999, 2001) and the Melina Mercouri Award (1997). He was the artistic director of the Dance Theatre of the National Theatre of Northern Greece from 2000 to 2005. He has directed plays from the Greek and international repertoire, musicals, operas, the children’s play “Frutopia” by Eugene Trivizas and multi-disciplinary productions like “Much Ado and Nothing”, “Bossa Nova”, “Titanic”, “Wind” for the National Theatre of Greece, in which he combines all of his capacities. Since 2018, he has been the artistic director of the Greek National Opera Ballet. Since 2019, he has been president of the school from which he graduated, the Greek National School of Dance.
