Within a specially configured sound installation set inside Onassis Stegi’s basement Exhibition Hall (-1), two performers, two amplifiers, and 14 speakers each render – before onlookers – the superchaos that is the coming of age process.

Interpretive movements derived from present-day visual stimuli are intermingled to create a new movement vocabulary. Original pieces of music developed through collective composition practices and/or songwriting – created exclusively for this specific choreographic project by Aliki Leftherioti (Saber Rider), Dimitris Apostolakidis (Fred Afraid), Yannis Voulgaris (John Vulgaris), Christos Bekiris (bhukhurah), Complex Shadow, and the two performers – are heard here for the first time.

Inside a dark (scenic) environment possibly reminiscent of an underground club, a synthesis of the two performers’ independent yet connected soli co-exists with a multi-channel sound installation for 45 minutes. Felipe Vareschi’s specially configured sound design creates a captivating atmosphere. The performers negotiate the ways in which the soundscape’s intensities and rhythms, its pauses and words impress themselves upon and stimulate the body, proposing a practice for seeking out new connections and assimilating degrees of friction and conflict during the formulation and acceptance of our identities and body image.

As a piece, “optimal soft” explores the limits of expressing vulnerability during the course of coming of age processes that unfold as a collective act. The body of the two female performers and the music tracks form a “body” of their own that relates the collective and personal experiences and thoughts of seven individuals in the city of Athens. This sound permeates the bodies, pierces through the space, and beams us directly into what it feels like to be young, strong, and vulnerable.

: Despina Sanida Crezia, Fotini Stamatelopoulou | 

: Aliki Leftherioti (Saber Rider), Dimitris Apostoliakidis (Fred Afraid), John Vulgaris, Christos Bekiris (bhukhurah), Complex Shadow | 