Fysalida is a dance group based in Heraklion, Crete. The company was founded in 2006 by Georgia Petrali with the aim of exploring, creating and producing any art form through collaboration between artists, educators, therapists and scientists.

The dance company’s activities include dance and dance-theatre performances, solo performances, dance film and video art production, installation performances, experimental performances and video screenings, modern dance, movement, contact improvisation seminars, community work projects and community dance projects. The company’s research and creative materials are transformed into art through movement, dance, speech, theatre, photography, music, the visual arts and video art.

Fysalida dance company creates utilising the skills of amateur and professional performers, dancers, actors, musicians, composers, facilitators, visual artists, painters, video artists and others, who collaborate depending on the needs of each production or activity of the company. Amateur and professional artists are invited to create in a professional manner with vision. In each production the dance company is coordinated by skilled individuals and consists of a different number of artists. We seek to create an artistic core which embraces various artists from Crete and the rest of Greece and abroad.

The dance company’s research activities include a team of social scientists (psychologist, sociologist, social worker, journalist, and art historian) who are involved in the theoretical side of each production. By taking a psychoanalytical and sociological approach to each idea, members of the team deepen the historical-dramaturgical side of each production by brain storming and recording and making public their ideas. The work of this research team promotes both the scientific and artistic side of things.

Fysalida dance company is also actively involved in community dance projects. By organising various dance and movement seminars which are open to all parties interested in having some experience with movement or improvisation, and by coordinating artistic activities such as dance performances and films in which people whose main occupation is not dance are involved, we seek to raise awareness and motivate ordinary, every-day people. Focusing primarily on movement, we are interested in reaching out to a wide set of people and bringing them into contact with the art of dance. Through the philosophy and action of our dance company we seek to serve as a source of inspiration for increasing numbers of different social groups.

The objective of the Fysalida dance company’s activities is to move the public via the art produced and to raise awareness about various modern social issues which are highlighted via the art we produce.

Georgia Petrali