was born and is based in Athens. She works as a dancer, performer, and choreographer/performance maker. She has studied Contemporary Dance and History and Archaeology in Athens, Greece. As a performer and creator, she has worked with dance, performance, voice, speech, and movement research. Her artistic practice focuses on effort and labor, internet culture, urbanity, sound and music as well as on phenomenology of learning.

 (performer) / Spring Festival in Utrecht (

 (choreographer, performer) / Verão Azul Festival in Portugal (

 (performer) / performance by Fotini Stamatelopoulou. Premiere at Onassis Stegi in Athens (

 (choreographer, performer) / at Replika Teatro in Madrid in the frame of Festival Domingo organized by La Casa Encendida (

 (choreographer, performer) / at PERFORMISSIMA festival in Paris organized by Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, curated by Caterina Zevola

 (dancer) / performance by Tzeni Argyriou at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival 

Die Gesellschaft für Neue Musik Ruhr Residency

 (co-creator, performer) / research residency and performance in collaboration with composer Jeph Vanger

 (choreographer, performer) / at Les Halles, Brussels as part of the (Pas si) Fragile! Festival curated by Antoine Pickels

(resident) /bimonthly hosts a music show named 

 (choreographer, performer) / premiere at MIR Festival. Funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture, co-produced by MIR Festival

 (dancer) / performance by Iris Karayan funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture

 (choreographer, performer) / performance in the Temple of Poseidon and Amphitrite in Tinos, funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture and the Greek National Opera. Produced by Atopos cvc

 (initiator, performer) / research residency at P.A.R.T.S. Summer Residencies



 (dancer/performer) / performance by Androniki Marathaki at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival



 (performer) / performance presentation of Moriah Evans’ research at Onassis Stegi, Athens



 (performer, artistic director, creator) / performance at KEIV project space, Athens



 (performer, co-creator) / performance and installation by VIGIL duo at Flux Laboratory, Athens


 (performer, co-creator) / residency program at Flux Laboratory, Athens



 (performer, co-creator) / performance by VIGIL presented PCAI’s Sheltered Gardens exhibition



 (performer, co-creator) / performance by VIGIL (Despina Sanida Crezia & Fotini Stamatelopoulou) at ‘π’ Pavilion at Delphi, produced and supported by PCAI



 (dancer) / dance performance by Marianna Kavallieratos at Synchrono Theater, Athens



 (performer) / dance performance by Fotini Stamatelopoulou at ONC9 at Onassis Stegi

2021


 (external eye, movement assistant) / collaboration with Fotini Stamatelopoulou in MIR Festival, Athens



 (dancer) / collaboration with Cie Ioannis Mandafounis and Flux Laboratory



 (dancer) / dance commission of short dance videos



 (artistic director, performer) / research project hosted and supported by Duncan Dance Research Center, Athens / presented at TAVROS.space gallery, Athens



 (performer) / video performance in collaboration with DETACH duo, presented at the Athens Biennale 7

2019


 (dancer) / in pieces of Cyril Baldy, Ioannis Mandafounis, Christos Papadopoulos at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival


STUDIES


 on contemporary dance and performance in the National School of Dance, Athens (2016-2019)



 studies in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (2016-2023)

was presented at Nida Art Colony in th frame of Dutch Art Institute KITCHEN presentations

For a promise is meant to be broken like a piecrust.

Anyway, the periphery imitates the center

No reason pretending to be a denier nor an offender,

Just as the little puppy waits for its master tender.

It is our role – as loyal beads on the European fringe.

I’ve given it all - I’m out of despair

Why Are You Such A Crybaby?

presented at PERFORMISSIMA festival in Paris at Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles.

Down to Under x PERFORMISSIMA

Presented at the Athens & Epidaurus Festival


Can dance express the problems, the questions, and the need of modern humans for sociability today? Dancers and musicians shape the visual landscape, as they create a record of sounds and movements bringing memories of dances from the depths of time but also from the present, and they gradually widen the concentric circles of a collective celebration.
Can we invent new dances to express us and new rituals to unite us? What would such a festivity look like? Could we all ‘lend a hand’ in creating it? After all, this is what ‘mintati’ means in the villages of Epirus: the gathering to create, with everyone’s help, something needed by the community.
The 

 project was born in the light of these questions and thoughts, putting at the centre the concepts of community, collectivity, and solidarity.

Collaborating visual artist – Set designer

Original music composition, performance, sound editing on stage

 Nancy Stamatopoulou, Ermis Malkotsis, Ioanna Paraskevopoulou, Sotiria Koutsopetrou, Despina Sanida Crezia, Tasos Nikas, Sevasti Zafeira, Luke Macaronas | 

 AMORPHY

Tzeni Argyriou and the team would like to wholeheartedly thank all the participants at the research workshops for their contribution to the research and to the performance.

Photos by Karol Jarek

MINTATI

In a distortive environment composed by baile funk and hip hop sound samples, high volume levels and low frequencies that get physical, Jeph and Despina use voice, scream, autotune, physical effort and other tools in order to communicate and explore notions of gender, identity and pop culture.


Concept: Despina Sanida Crezia, Jeph Vanger
Performance: Despina Sanida Crezia
Music: Jeph Vanger

Curated by Filippos Raskovic & Roberto Beseler Maxwell

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/950523451/0ba5fb15a2

HYPER!

 Eleni Roberts Kazouri & Despina Sanida Crezia

Down to Under X Les Halles

Artist's Studio - Your Spine is A Language

Radio Shows

In view of video gaming, internet and Generation Z culture, the urban space works as an algorithm, a playground, a battleground, a wasteland, a living space, a field of ever-flowing stimuli as well as a confinement. Within this realm of urban decay, the performers delve into their bodily archive blending “feminine” TikTok dances with the physicality and gestures from underground music subcultures, such as emo rap, noise, metal and hardcore punk, exploring gender representations and forms of social disobedience through movement and sound.
These young obnoxious figures, overwhelmed by the bombardment of internet stimuli, city stress, and the weight of social injustice, channel their confusion, despair, frustration and rage into physical expression while proactively and playfully appropriate the urban landscape. Their intense physical and emotional effort transforms into vulnerability and intimacy, culminating in a gesture of tenderness towards one another.

Concept, choreography, artistic direction

 Eleni Roberts Kazouri, Despina Sanida Crezia | 

With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture

Down to Under

is a duet that articulates questions and concerns, captures thoughts and wishes in an attempt to challenge our imagination and sense of community. Two dancers perform alternating motifs, compose and abstract movement phrases and gestures, while a sequence of questions, affirmations and verbal associations is video projected on the back wall. Working on how movement, language and sound interface and the ways through which they co-create narratives, the work reflects on the personal and the collective, the present and the imaginary.

: Daphne Drakopoulou, Despina Sanida Crezia | 

: Elisavet Moraki | Subsidised by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture 2023

What are the bodies of our time?

→hosted in residence at P.A.R.T.S.’ SummerResidencies 2023

DUNNO is a social and performative research process for that which we don’t (believe to) know. For the things that we may have wished to learn, and we didn’t have the chance or the ability to do so. 

‘s objective is the use of multiple non-cognitive subjects as matter of negotiation, as well as motivator, using 

 as guidance for the action. The research process consists of both theoretical and movement research, interviews, workshops that will end up in a performance sharing. The theoretical research will focus on learning processes and more specifically on 

. Our goal is to compile categories of human and/or technological 

that will be used as the basis of the movement research. Then, interviews will be conducted to various persons aged 5-100 years old, based on the “

” question. The answers are encouraged to be – as much as it is possible- without limitations or criticism, spontaneous and associative, as would be the case when using an internet search engine. This process will be held on the axis of 

. [Sharing personal information and opening up can be a hard task for many individuals and everyone feels vulnerable when doing so.] With the collection of these (anonymous) answers, an 

will be formed. The archived answers will be put into categories compatible with machine learning methods and will be used as tasks in the performative process. The goal of this practice would be to make an 

. The admission of non-knowledge leaves us space to be aware of the vulnerable sides of our perception and self, of the 

DUNNO

Perfomance in the approximately 20 million-year-old petrified forest of Plaka at Sigri, Lesvos. In the context of Xeno Festival 2023. Supported by Lesvos Petrified Forest Museum and the Northern Aegean Region.

 by Irini Georgiou, Despina Sanida Crezia | 

Maroon

Ships traveling long distances, such as cruise ships and cargo ships, in their effort to maintain or increase the stability of the vessel, collect seawater in their tanks (sea ballast). Marine species, so-called invasive or “lessepsian migrants” such as lionfish, hare fish and purple jellyfish, are often trapped in them, traveling from one marine ecosystem to another. This phenomenon is also found in the mediterranean sea, where invasive species, which have themselves lost their natural environment, interrupt the balance of the region’s ecosystem. Bodies floating into the land explores the impacts of sea travelers on local biodiversity, health and the economy in relation to climate change. The artists reflect on the vulnerability of all “bodies of water” starting from the island of tinos.

Poseidon, the god of the sea, usually appears as a punisher and is associated with extreme phenomena such as omens, storms, earthquakes, sinkholes and volcanic eruptions. However, in tinos, he was worshiped as a healer and his wife amphitrite as the patroness of female fertility. Drawing inspiration from this positive quality of poseidon, a message of comfort in the face of environmental distress and a hope of planetary healing, a holistic view of the health of people and ecological systems are conveyed.

: Despina Charitonidi (visual artist), Mihalis Kalkanis (musician), Despina Sanida Crezia (choreographer) | 

: Leda Diochnou, Eirini Georgiou, Elton Petri, Thanos Ragousis, Foteini Stamatopoulou, Stefanos Tsogkas | 

Eleni Riga, The Office of Hydrocommons | 

: Alexandra Masmanidi & Giorgos Athanasiou

Presented in the ancient Temple of Poseidon and Amphitrite in Tinos, in

the framework of “All of Greece, One culture,” a program of the

Ministry of Culture. Supported by Onassis Air.

Bodies Floating into the Land

How does the body in pain move and communicate? Where are the boundaries between pain and pleasure in an era where the alternation between those two takes place instantly? The performance 

 seeks a sensory, pre-linguistic, unspeakable language, one that focuses on the mobility changes of a person in pain.
The ensemble approaches this subject matter through methods invented by humans for pain management, and develops the piece along two basis axes, one kinetic and one sonic. On the one hand, it focuses on the sensation of bodily pain. A body in pain moves in such a way as to always pursue and complete what is not there. It lives, organizes and regulates itself through memories from the time when it was “complete” and healthy. Its movement, presently elliptical, is realized every moment along with whatever is omitted. On the other hand, it guides us to listen to the particular language in which the phantom of pain expresses itself. Performers on the microphone recite mantras, words, instructions on pain management; they laugh, cry, breathe and everything is recorded, played back and gradually converted into audio frequencies. In this piece, the two aforementioned axes cross paths in multiple ways and instantly illuminate connections highlighting social, religious and cultural mandates on pain.

: Eltron Petri, Sofia Pouchtou, Despoina Sanida Crezia, Despina Chatzipavlidou | 

Sound design – Live processing with electronic means

Visual installation design and construction

: Filippos Vasileiou, John Britton, Mersianna Eleftheriadou, Kostis Kallivretakis, Giorgos Sioras Deligiannis, Leda Diochnou | 

: Athens Epidaurus Festival | Funded by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports and the NEON Organization for Culture and Development

painfully painless

HOWEVER is an ever-going research performative process which emits from readymade internet text tutorials. We use + transform the easiness of tutorials’ language into the motivator of our mental + physical engagement + effort.

HOWEVER is an ever-going research performative process which emits from readymade internet text tutorials. HOWEVER will never be perfect, for it doesn’t want to. HOWEVER will always be a newborn -always starting from zero- never holding enough knowledge of the world and, whilst it constantly tries to know more about it, it is always tangled up in a process of learning and unlearning. HOWEVER was born as a joke that later offered us new insights on body, physical and mental effort, performative strategies of sustainability, companionship and further reflection on ‘how to perform’, ‘how to learn’, ‘how to know’, ‘how to not know’, ‘how to try’, ‘how to run’, ‘how to keep going’, ‘how to cuddle’, ‘how to fold a gum wrapper heart in 9 simple steps’.

: Leda Diochnou, Irini Georgiou, Aliki Leftherioti (saber._.rider), Despina Sanida Crezia, Fotini Stamatelopoulou, Stefanos Tsogas | 

HOWEVER X KEIV

 (Fotini Stamatelopoulou & Despina Sanida Crezia)

In November 2022, VIGILstarted working on site as artists-in-residence, taking over an old chemical factory to conduct their artistic and choreographic research. The project title "[a] border of dying", challenging the boundaries of the words 'dying' and 'dyeing', refers both to the subject and process of the performative piece and the installation, as well as to the original identity of the building itself – a symbol of chemical industry - which is now lost.

“[a] border of dying” is an interdisciplinary collaborative research project that focuses on visual arts through the prism of textile use and discoloration, as well as movement through which the human body is approached as a tool and the concepts of corrosion and change are explored.

VIGIL’S movement research is structured around the notions of skin, time, transformation and corrosion, effort and coexistence. The project investigates the dipole of existence / non-existence and body’s resistance in it, but also the dipole of vigor / passivity that permeates this resistance.

The process of discoloration of textiles is approached through the terms of territoriality, border, and the fragmented “death”, but also through a process of effort and patience.

[a] border of dying

A walk in the Diomedes botanical garden (Athens) with two different starting points. The two performers communicate by distance and without visual contact with walkie-talkies guiding and encouraging one another or just chatting. A combination of direct stimuli from the surrounding space and from scores that conduct their patrol and action in the garden. Guards is a performance-observation on trust, friendship, loneliness trying to explore new modes of companionship.

: VIGIL (Fotini Stamatelopoulou & Despina Sanida Crezia)

’ exhibition produced by PCAI. Athens, 2022.

GUARDS

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ITHOUGHTILOSTYOU

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 | 

optimal.soft

, translating the search engines’ results into action. The main object of research is the 

 it makes within it. The bodies through their 

 exerting to find a solution to the tasks that concern them. In the HOWEVER platform the persons explore and redefine the function of the collective and of individuality through an ever-evolving performative practice.

 Irini Georgiou, Alexandra Domniki Drandaki, Leda Diochnou, Despina Sanida Crezia, Fotini Stamatelopoulou, Stefanos Tsogas | 

With the support of Duncan Dance Research Center

HOWEVER X TAVROS

Piece by Cyril Baldy in the frame of Growing! for the National School of Dance students. Presented in Athens & Epidaurus Festival.