MARIA KOLIOPOULOU

Maria Koliopoulou was born in Athens where she lives and works. She studied on a scholarship at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance. She is a founding member and has the artistic direction of the Contemporary Dance Group Pretext. Her works have been commissioned by the Athens Festival, the Onassis Foundation House, the Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attica Piraeus and the Islands, the International Contemporary Dance Festival in Algiers. She has been awarded the Jarmila Jeřábková award (2008) in Prague, the 2nd Prize at the International Contemporary Dance Festival of Algiers (2013) and the Tanzrecherche 2023 from NRW KulturSekretariat, Ministerium fur Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. In 2017 she was invited to the Belgrade Dance Institute and the Editta Brown Group, Austria. In 2019, she choreographed the play Here and Where? for Stopgap dance company, England. With two artist residencies in Malmö, Sweden she launched the Made project with the support of the International Dance Program of Sweden. She has collaborated with the Onassis Foundation's Roof on Unlimited Access, iDance: Dance Without Discrimination and Europe Beyond Access Programme. She has taught in primary and secondary education, and has given seminars at the State Dance School, the Kalamata International Dance Festival, the Higher School of Fine Arts, the dance department of the American College Deree.