Dimitris Papaioannou and the art of painting with bodies

Dimitris Papaioannou has an explanation for his late rise on the international scene. The Greek artist had just turned 50 when he became a hit overnight in Paris in 2014; his first international co-production for the stage, the very successful The great tamer, followed in 2017. Yet Papaioannou does not see it as a strictly artistic breakthrough.

“Until the financial crisis in Greece, no commissioner was interested in Athens,” he says backstage at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, where his latest production, Transverse orientation, was carried out recently. He looks at me with a touch of irony. “When a country is being destroyed, it gets sexy in the art world, right? Is not it true ? “

So credit the Greek debt turmoil for some of the most visually striking dances of this century. Like the nominees Olivier The great tamer, the new from Papaioannou Transverse orientation, which opens in Sadler’s Wells from October 21, is packed with carefully assembled paintings that make reference to art history and mythology. Naked figures arise from or stand on an articulated bull; two Aphrodites evoke different facets of the Greek goddess of love.

Slow and dreamlike, the result is firmly rooted in the dance tradition of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater, which Papaioannou calls one of the two “guiding lights” that inspired his theatrical career, along with Robert Wilson. Unsurprisingly, Papaioannou was asked in 2018 to create the first piece of the Tanztheater Wuppertal since Bausch’s death, Since she.

Given Bausch’s mixed reception in the UK, it’s no surprise that Papaioannou has inherited some of that suspicion. Preview Transverse orientation in Time Out London warned against “Eurocore at the imposing avant-garde”, and her constant use of nudity triggered a vocal reaction when The great tamer came to Sadler’s Wells in 2018. “After 45 minutes a gentleman stood up in the front, said,” I’m sick of cocks! “, and left,” recalls Papaioannou with a chuckle. “It was very sweet.”

However, Papaioannou, who first trained as a painter of Byzantine icons, hardly corresponds to the project of provocateur. As a child, he learned to draw on his own and, at 17, looked for the address of the Greek painter Yannis Tsarouchis and knocked on his door. “He taught me the technique of four-color painting, which is the Byzantine Cretan technique,” ​​says Papaioannou. “It’s just English red, yellow ocher, black and white. And that creates enormous precision and an economy of means.

Religious imagery fed his imagination. At home, he frequently frequents Mount Athos, the Orthodox monastic center. “I thought I was religious,” he says of his teenage years. “I’m not, but I appreciate the art and philosophy around human religion.”

His work as an icon painter and portrait painter allowed Papaioannou to survive after fleeing home at the age of 18. His parents opposed both his artistic journey – he had been admitted to the Athens School of Fine Arts – and his homosexuality. . “They said both would make me poor and miserable,” he recalls.

While graduating from five years, Papaioannou also published graphic novels and discovered the dance scene of Athens. He trained in the technique of the American modern dance choreographer Erick Hawkins, stayed in New York, where he met the butoh dancer Min Tanaka. “It was a revelation for me,” he says of butoh, the Japanese avant-garde dance form. “I have a body that cannot function in contemporary dance. I was working really hard, but it didn’t look good at all. With the Butoh, I could go further indoors.

In 1986, he founded Edafos Dance Theater, which quickly became an underground success. “I was a punk, it was around that time. With a group of friends, we had a squat in the center of Athens, and we turned it into a small theater. They did what Papaioannou calls “human puppet theater, very similar to comics or expressionist silent films”.

Artists and even ministers of culture presented themselves; in the 1990s, the company took major steps and achieved commercial success in Greece. As Edafos retreated in the early 2000s, his last lap was the 2004 Athens Olympics, where Papaioannou was tasked with preparing the opening and closing ceremonies.

“The art world is snobby about these great shows. When I first arrived in Paris, I was advised not to talk about it, ”he says. He had no qualms about meeting the job requirements and even returned to it when asked to choreograph the first European Games, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2015. “These are works of national propaganda, but I am not against positive propaganda. for countries. It’s a huge playground.

He also “needed the work”, he adds frankly, since he produces his work independently of his workshop in Athens: “I cannot survive with the work that I do. A self-proclaimed “slow man,” Papaioannou enjoys spending months polishing each production before it hits the stage, and hardly ever takes outside commissions. The Tanztheater Wuppertal was the exception. “It was a trap. There are things you just can’t say no to, because you would regret it, ”he laughs. “It was tough. And lovely. But tough.”

If you are looking for an archetype, you will most likely end up with a Greek myth

Some of the dancers fell in love with her pictorial style, most notably Breanna O’Mara, who plays the central female figure in Transverse orientation. “I was very drawn to the uniqueness of Dimitris, the way he was able to articulate images and ideas about the body,” she says.

Mythology provides Papaioannou with useful references to convey these ideas, he explains. “I do a silent job, so I have to have a common language with my peers. And if you are looking for an archetype, you will most likely end up with a Greek myth. Is it considered cliché in Greece, I ask, to tap into the country’s rich pantheon? He smiles. “Do you know what the debate on the Olympic Opening Ceremony was? That we should not talk about antiquity, because we are fed up with it.

Despite all the recent acclaim in the dance world, Papaioannou still grins when I call him a choreographer. “I find it weird that I can be called a choreographer. I have enormous respect for artists who know the craft of choreography, like [William] Forsythe and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

He is more comfortable with the formalist label, citing his favorite poet, the 13th century Persian author Rumi: “When you brush a form to clean it, it becomes what it really is.”

“I believe that overworking something is not a problem,” he says. “I think it takes a lot of ocean for a pebble to become perfectly round.” He continued to refine Transverse orientation since its creation at the Lyon Dance Biennale in June; production is now, he says, “less serious”.

Before the delays related to the pandemic, Papaioannou himself had to be there, as the narrator. He opted for “a more abstract story,” he says. “Things are floating around and you are invited to be your own vehicle of associations as a spectator. “

Still, with typical self-deprecation, he is quick to warn, “Don’t make it sound like I knew what I was doing. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing after I’m done.

‘Transverse Orientation’ is at Sadler’s Wells, October 21-23, sadlerswells.com