The relationship of the human body and nature forms and more especially the forms of trees lead to the concept Embracing the Tree.
The choreography we conceived relates to the research concerning the weight of human body in relationship with nature.
Dancers are etheral creatures they seem to have very little weight, their unbearable lightness creates the illusion that we can overcome the earth’s weight but as etheral as they may seem they finally land on earth.
The sound of their landing-a surprise- reminds us that we are bound to earth with our weight the weight of our body a restless power.
The idea is inspired by a real event in India, where local people- in order to protect the trees in a forest area from being cut down, to create space for a new housing development -they embraced the trees and stood there for days until government decided to negotiate. They don't part from the tree for days on end, until there is no more danger.

They know that the tree is lonely but is able to project human feelings into nature...
We researched in Greece an environment where we could stage.Embracing the Tree.
We finally found a unique natural environment in the work “Travels” by Pausanias, the historian of Greek antiquity.
He describes, already many years ago, the unique formation of four trees in the location of Karyes in the Peloponese. Several centuries later, we staged the human body, embracing the tree, longing for an embrace or being haunted by the strong often-overwhelming feeling of belonging.
The dancers caress the tree’s skin. They enter inside the tree and find shelter or they are violently thrown out by the strong haunting energy of the black hollow of the tree. They approach again, they long for the warmth of the embrace, they feel the tree’s skin awakening. The sun lights their embrace.

They surrender to the warmth of the trees embrace the strong caress of the sunlight and the powerful perfume of the earth’s soil. Reflections.

The research into the relationship of the human body and the tree becomes a dance piece and its dual perception is reflected in the sea’s surface while a lonely tree still observes the perpetual movement of the bodies while attempting to reach the sunlight and listen to the whisper of the tree’s branches.

Our love, our hatred, are reflections on water and we’ve learnt  -for our misfortune or our shame-that water has no colour, no taste, no odour. Some reflections on the water however attract us, that is because even if we desire them we are unable to determine them and we are so trying to create the truth of the unreachable.
The movement relates to the forms of the trees around as well as the forms and textures of the sea.

The choreography is filmed using several possible framing of the landscape, so as to suggest several viewpoints op the spectaror.
So the body or the bodies of the dancers are situated in many possible ways and forms in these frames. This enables a result which enlarges from the realistic theatrical form of the choreography as seen only from the front in a theatre environment.
We used many possible forms created by the natural environment and suggest some new images combining the lines of the horizon formed within the chosen frames in juxtaposition with the forms and movements of the bodies. the film is in four parts

1st part Embracing the Tree - Caress
music: Thanassis Rikakis- natural sounds and computer music

2nd part Embracing the Tree - Reflections
music: Thanassis Rikakis - natural sounds and computer music

3rd part Embracing the Tree -the Nightmare
music: Fanny Mendelssohn - Piano Trio in D Minor Op.11

4th part Embracing the Tree - Reaction
music:  Alexis Boulgourtzis - Improvisation

FIFA MONTREAL, CANADA
VIDEO FORMES, CLERMONT FERRAND, FRANCE
ARTFILM, TEPLICE, SLOVAKIA
MILLENIUM ARTS, HUNGARY
GRAND PRIX MEDIA DANCE CARINA ARI, FRANCE
ECOFILM, LILLE, FRANCE
ECOFILM, BURKINA FASO
EPHOS FESTIVAL OF NEW MEDIA, ATHENS, Greece
ELEMENTS GALLERY, ATHENS, Greece
VIDEODANCE 2000, Thessaloniki, Athens, Greece
IMAGES AND SOUNDS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN, Spinaloga Crete, Greece

IT HAS BEEN AWARDED WITH THE PRIX AGENDA 21