Koliva

Koliva is a dance performance bringing together Greek ritual tradition and contemporary stage language, focusing on the fine line between life and death. In the work’s core lies a paradoxical ritual: every year, five women above sixty meet to make their own koliva while they are still alive.

The scene is designed as a domestic environment, a place of companionship. Women laugh, gossip, remember, and tease each other while preparing the special treat. A symbol of remembering and parting, koliva acquire a double meaning: they stand as a commemoration of lost youth – a salutation to bodies that used to be different, to choices made, to all those that never happened – but also as a celebration of the will to live. Women stir wheat, sprinkle sugar, garnish with pomegranate. The circle of preparation is repeated, rhythmic and gradually synchronised, as it slowly transforms into a dance. At the same time, an underlying irony pierces everything that is taking place: koliva must be consumed shortly, before they “rot”and become dangerous. Their bulimic consumption turns into a metaphor for existence itself: the hurry to live life to the fullest before the inevitable decay. As time goes by, life and death become one as the figures onstage glide between the two worlds and the cracks of conscience.

Choreographer Christiana Kosiari continues to focus on non-youthful bodies, bringing onstage two professional and three amateur performers above sixty. The performers share the same space onstage; each carries along her distinct life path, experiences, and relationship to her body. Koliva is a celebration that deconstructs death with humour, reconciling it with the circle of life. An encounter that honours what is lost without forgetting what still exists, reminding us that memory, companionship, and joy are powers that echo even after the end.