We are Despina Sophia Stamos and Bianca Falco, co-directors of passTRESpass 2019 a community dance project of the modern dance awareness society -creating public dance performances with refugees and local community in Athens, Greece. 

Despina has been developing passTRESpass since 2006, and is joined by Bianca this year. We are performing proximity, the culmination of community dance workshops at a collectively governed refugee-squat in Athens and in New York City. Amidst rupture and dislocation, we ask: how can dance physicalize new conceptions of community? How can we include excluded narratives and create bridges? How can art make space for displaced bodies?

We invite you to witness this experimental dialogue in vocalized movement and physicalized narrative between passTRESpass members here at 1PM at Anita’s Way, NYC and in Athens, performed and live-streamed, at Dimotiki Agora Kypselis on Saturday the 4th of May 2019.

Conceived and directed by: the modern dance awareness society

NYC directed by Despina Sophia Stamos and Bianca Falco, with Wen- Shuan Yang, Rachel Cohen, Georgia Rapti, Anthi Kerameos and Marielyse Lely Burgos,

Athens :Malvina Lorida, Mary Kate Sheehan, Maria Juliana Byck in collaboration with Jamila, Mina, Abduol, Asad, Marjan, Ahura, Emal, Farepa, Bita, Zohrer.

We are asking your support to pay our dedicated collaborators at City Plaza Refugee Accommodation and Solidarity Center for their work in tmdas' passTRESpass performance - entitled proximity 2019.

The work will be performed simultaneously in New York City and Athens, Greece on May 4th, 2019, linked by Skype. 

All remaining funds will go to support the amazing City Plaza Refugee Accommodation and Solidarity Center, which is entirely run on donations and the tireless work of volunteers.

More on our Collaborators!

While our cast undergoes periodic changes due to the unpredictable circumstances of refugee lives, proximity’s group of performers has continued to build the piece in collaboration with our local artists Anthi Keramoeos, and long-distance with Bianca and Despina, via video and Skype. 

The cast includes Abdoul, collaborator since 2009, father of twins from Afghanistan; Jamila, a dynamic Iranian mother of 4 and would-be actress; Jamila's radiant daughter Mina; Marjan, from Iraq, Asad from Kabul, and Ahura, Emal, Farepa, Bita, Zohrer.

With a core cast of 10 performers, and 1-2 extras, we're budgeting $2000 for stipends to pay our wonderful refugee-participants; with the remainder going to support the amazing residence, City Plaza. 

on passTRESpass

Through intensive movement workshops and communal activities, we invite refugees and other community participants to physically explore and share their stories through the co-creation of a public dance-theater performance. 

We aim to provide a safe environment for participants to find pathways back into their bodies and creative process in the face of rupture and disorientation, and to honor their stories through public performance. This year's workshop culminated in a moving performance entitled proximity 2018, at the theater Embros, in Athens, in which participants danced with 15-17 year old NYC students from the Friends Seminary School.

proximity 2019 is a further development of our Embros performance, debuting at the beautiful Anita's Way on 135 West 42nd Street, with live-streaming from the Kypseli Agora in Athens. The piece aims to amplify our performers' important perspectives across borders, and features more intensive co-direction and creative input from our core participants in Athens.

City Plaza Refugee Accommodation and Solidarity Center

About Us

passTRESpass founder Despina Sophia Stamos is a dancer/choreographer living and working in NYC since 1989. Her work has been presented throughout New York City at such venues as Dance Theater Workshop, PS122, PS1/MOMA, Judson, Chashama, the German embassy, as well as internationally in Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Brazil and Puerto Rico. She has performed and organized events in a myriad of locations including embassies, Times Square, the NYC subways, piers, parks, bathrooms and gardens. As a dancer she has worked with various companies and choreographers including Daria Fain/ the Prosodic Body, Chen and Dancers, Hikari Baba and Dancers, Anahi Galante Dance Theater, the National Caravan Theater, Felix Ruckert and Wendy Osserman Dance Theater, Blum Dance Theater, Vanessa Walters, the Daisy Spurs, Time Lapse Dance, the Missile Dick Chicks and the Hungry March Band.Stamos has also curated various dance events including Deli Dances in Times Square, Dancehouse at Workhouse Theater, 21 Suffragettes at Galapagos and Oasis. Stamos also has created passTRESpass, a dance project with refugees and immigrants in Athens, Greece, producing six performances since 2007.In addition to her own work, she is currently dancing with the Hungry March Band. Stamos is founding member of the modern dance awareness society. 

How You Can Help

Donate - every $ contributes towards this initiative. 

Come see the performance!

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