Before, Now, After is an interdisciplinary project by dancers & makers Chloe Aligianni and Polena Kolia Petersen along with documentary artist, Xenia Tsilochristou. Through our dance pilgrimage on the island of Leros we meet with the locals, their Asian Minor family stories and the island's Asian Minor history engaging with embodied, relational and narrative traces of the 1922 Asia Minor catastrophe.
Bit by bit and through a research built on giving time to the encounters with the bodies, the materials, the ideas, we weave a dance performance that brings contemporary dance together with folk dance and folk music from Asia Minor, a dance documentary, a photo exhibition and narrative audiopaths that take the listeners on journeys of imaginative choreographies and historical traces through the island.
The project is supported and funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports 2021-2022 and is made with the support from the Municipality of Leros, Leros Asian Minor association, Nea Ionia Asian Minor association and the Asian Minor archive in Athens.
In 2023 the documentary Before, Now, After was awarded the Nikos Koundouros Award at the International Film Festival of Ierapetra.
