19th Kalamata International Dance Festival

The 19th Kalamata International Dance Festival will take place this year between 18th and 25th of July. It is the nineteenth consecutive year that the festival is carried out in Kalamata, whose mayor is Panagiotis E. Nikas, by the International Dance Centre with Artistic Director, Vicky Maragopoulou.

The Kalamata Dance Festival, after nineteen years of unremitting presence, it is now known to everyone for its constant contribution to the cultural life of the country. Being an achievement of cultural decentralization, it has been characterized as the ideal example and it has been, also, praised for its exemplary operation, its continuous development and its steady course, which set it to a special position among the European dance festivals and the greatest European cultural events. The International Dance Centre and the International Dance Festival have inextricably connected Kalamata with the contemporary dance and the local community with the culture.

Confirming its aims, the Festival locates its performances every year in an environment of consistent deepening, through the creation of a parallel faculty of theoretical support and professional education, and has contributed determinately in the creation of an audience of contemporary dance as well as in the widening of the expectations of this audience. Its vision is to continue highlighting the art of dancing attracting larger audience, to contribute in the education of the art lovers and to enrich in any way what the audience receives from the landscape of dance. Anyone who has visited the Kalamata Dance Festival has imprinted in his consciousness a strong experience of art and of a high cultural event, which creates a unique framework of existence between the artists and the audience.

The Festival in times of crisis

The difficulties which the country faces the last years have affected the duration and the number of performances of the Dance Festival, bringing necessary cuts. However, in a situation where the culture is attacked by different factors, the Festival chose to keep the high cultural level of the performances in accordance to the financial capabilities. It is a great fact that, with the support of the Ministry, the Kalamata Dance Festival achieves to get support by the ESPA. This financing condition gives the festival the capability to bring the audience close to great international artists. This connection bears even more greatness during the difficulties which the country experiences. The Dance Festival chose, also, to invest at its vision for education, by suggesting educational activities of high quality. Being aware of the difficulties which the Greek citizens face, the festival keeps the prices low while offering reduced prices to special groups of citizens.