Eleni Ploumi
Part of the following United Cowboys productions so far:
Eternal Idol - Seasoning - We Want More - In Case
Eleni Ploumi is a dance performer and maker based in Tilburg. She studied Theater Dance Performance at the Contemporary/Urban department at FONTYS Dance Academy, from which she graduated from the Bachelor of
Choreography program (2016).
Her presence in the field has been almost equally devoted between creating performances and performing for other dance companies or artists, two activities that for her can only co-exist and
feed each other. As a performer, she has been working with various companies since 2014: T.R.A.S.H. Dance Performance Group (2015 & 2016), Katja Heitmann (2014-present), United Cowboys (2018 - present), the visual arts duo ND2+
(Inge Nabuurs & Erwin van Doorn, 2018-present),
Sarah Prescimone (2019 – present) and more.
Since 2017 she has been developing her own work under the support and guidance of Makershuis Tilburg, prod.nu, United Cowboys and DansBrabant, creating three solo works that have been performed in various locations in the Netherlands
and abroad.
‘POUTANES - a confrontation with pleasure’, a query about the extent of the free will regarding our bodies, as well as a commentary on the stigmatization of sex workers.
‘Stirring Pan’, a physical performance where the body works as (re)generator of energy by producing intramural heat.
‘Wax me Apart’, a performance installation where sculpture and movement merged together.
From on 2020 she is part of PLAN talentontwikkeling, a 3-year trajectory which gives her the ground, support and guidance to develop her work further. For the PLAN trajectories she is developing two projects. “Teatro Anatomico”, a theater dance performance in collaboration with dancers and makers Sarah Prescimone and Helena Araujo, which looks into humanity from the perspective of its entertainment. “Forge” (working title), a performance installation in collaboration with visual artist Tim Henrik Schneider (founder artistic platform Karmanoia, lead artist Doloris MetaMaze), in which physical somatic and physical material come together and intertwine.
Eleni’s work is characterized by high and intense physical activity combined with theatrical elements, invariably searching for physical and mental boundaries.
“For me, theater stands for personal liberation and as trigger for raising questions, for the audience as well as the performers. The empathy with the character(s) can liberate from taboos, it can bring on the surface suppressed emotions and thoughts. I am enthralled by how the body itself turns into a mode for communication and representation. How a physical performance can take you smoothly by the hand or other times push you with your back against the wall. How movement, images, characters and atmospheres can impel you to advance, to see situations and people from a distance, to laugh with, or get destroyed alongside them. To come back more pure, fresh, ready...”
