‘Margin’ points to the periphery, to the outsider, to margin-alisation; but both the English word and the French marge layer this meaning with one that posits a space of possibility. The Unlikely Margin explores the performative and choreographic practices of ballet in early 20th century Greece as an unexpected territory of dissidence within (dance) modernity, grounding histories of ballet as popular, mass entertainment and as a territory of negotiation of West-leaning post-Ottoman identity. The project develops an intersectional understanding of the disruptions that early 20th century Greek ballet brought to normative national and gender narratives, placing these in a framework marked by class difference and its manifestation in constructions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. The Unlikely Margin draws from extensive archival sources as well as interviews with contemporary practitioners, seeking the traces of an invisibilised history in the present.
[forthcoming] Call-and-response. Forgotten innovations and active traces of early-twentieth-century ballet in Greece. In: Daniher, C. K. & Schweitzer, M. (eds.): Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance, Vol. 1: Performers, New York: Bloomsbury.
[2024, peer reviewed] Palace protégée and pop-star: Elsa Enkel in Greece, 1913–1933. In: Theatralia 27/2, 64-79 (open access).
[2024] Ambiguity as strategy. Autobiographical and dance-historical reflections around Greek national identity and foreign-ness. In: Arenz, J., Darian, V. & Hölz, J. (eds.): RE/VERSIONEN. Künstlerische und wissenschaftliche Verfahren der Un/Eindeutigkeit, Berlin: Neofelis Verlag, 211-215 (open access).
[2024, peer reviewed] Mapping as Historiographic Practice. The Ballet Landscape in Interwar Greece. In: Dance Chronicle 47/1, 6-32 (open access).
[2023, peer reviewed] Ballet at the movies or Dancing on the limits of American-ness: Thalia Zanou. In: Atkins, J. (ed.): Dance in US Popular Culture, Oxon: Routledge, 327-330.(open access)
[2023, peer reviewed] Choreographing proximity and difference. Vassos Kanellos’ performance of Greekness as an embodied negotiation with Western dance modernity. In: Dance Research Journal 55/1, 22-45. (open access)
[2023, peer reviewed] Reverse-engineering the Sylph: reclaiming female ballet bodies in Florentina Holzinger’s TANZ. In: Istanbul University’s Journal for Women’s Studies 26, Special issue on Women, dance and music, 23-43. (open access)
[2022, peer reviewed] ‘To take dance back and make it ours’. Europe and the nation in early modern dance in Greece. In: Kolb, A. & Haitzinger, N. (eds.): Post-Utopia and Europe in the Performing Arts, Munich: epodium, 59-71.
[2021, peer reviewed] ‘Choreography, virility and the nation: the case of Vassos Kanellos’. In: Danza e Ricerca 13, 141-161.(open access)
[2019] Making ballet feminist again. In: TQW Blog.
[2024 – panel/talk] (In-)Visibilities – Moderner Tanz Re-Visited, Symposium of the Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung, Essen, Germany.
[2024 – talk] Bad Ballet, Tanzquartier Wien, Vienna, Austria.
[2023 – talk] ‘Roving almost naked like street dogs’: A history of ballet and stigma, ÖGNS/University of Vienna, Austria.
[2023 – conference presentation] Genres, Methods, Masters in Dance, Hungarian Dance University, Budapest, Hungary.
[2023 – conference presentation] Zoom in and focus on Modern Hellenism: texts, images, objects, histories, 7th European Congress of Modern Greek Studies, Universität Wien, Austria.
[2023 – research workshop] Peripheralised Dance Modernities Working Group – research workshop, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey.
[2022 – talk] Mapping proximity and difference. Some thoughts on a methodology for ‘peripheral’ dance historiography, VSMU – Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava, Slovakia.
[2022 – conference presentation] History & Historiography Working Group, Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA), online / University of Essex, UK.
[2022 – conference presentation] Moving, relating, commanding. Choreographies for bodies, identities and ecologies, NOFOD / Danish National School of Performing Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark.
[2022 – conference presentation] Communities: Historical Fictions Research (HFRN) Network annual conference, online.
[2020 – conference presentation] Post-utopia and Europe in the performing arts, University of Salzburg, Austria.