THE ARTIST
PENELOPE MOROUT (or Mourrut, due to her double nationality) is an interdisciplinary dance artist and choreographer, who is intrigued by creating hybrid artworks through the intersection and fusion of diverse techniques, from both performing and visual arts (movement improvisation and expanded choreography, sketching and drawing, crafting, filmmaking, multimedia). She holds two bachelor degrees from the National School of Dance (K.S.O.T.) in Athens and the National Technical University of Athens – School of Architecture (Greece). In July 2020, she graduated with Distinction from the two-year Master’s Theatre Practices Programme at ArtEZ University of the Arts (The Netherlands), where she specialized in a holistic approach on performance production and dramaturgy, by combining academic research and artistic practices. Currently assigned as Programme Coordinator for the Master’s Performance Practices at ArtEZ and included in the creative team of TANZAHOi International Screendance Festival Hamburg, her work expands from sculpting dance-theatre performances and participatory multimedia installations to designing theatre sets and making mixed-media video-dance animations.
She has collaborated professionally with various dance and theatre companies, both as a performer (Juxtapoz Dance Company / Gouzelis – Blackman, DIPETHE Ioanninon for Athens and Epidaurus Festival, So7 Company / Korrou – Kouroumpalis), and a director/choreographer and set designer (Folie à Deux, Ψ). Simultaneously, she works independently in the field of short screen-dance videos, dance animation και mixed-media films and has exhibited her work in a series of festivals around the world [TANZAHOi International Dance Film Festival (Germany), IMARP – Mostra Internacional de dança – Imagens em Movimento – Video dança (Brazil), Festival International de Danse Animée (France), International Forum of Performance Art (Greece)]. Furthermore, in 2020 she performed in Amsterdam Fringe Festival, together with co-creator Christina Mastori, an activist dance performance, T.E.P. | The Elephant Project, regarding illegal poaching and animal rights, while she was part of the International Exhibition HUMAN RIGHTS? | THE FUTURE’S SHAPE #WomenCanSaveTheWorld in Trento (Italy) with her short videodance film, Ophelia. For her latest solo dance performance entitled H.I.I.T. | High-Intensity Identity Training (ReA! Art Fair, Milan) she used herself as a case-study for a year and incorporated in her daily routine two regimens (Intermittent Fasting and High-Intensity Interval Training), in order to draw attention to how the human body is constantly put to work in the service of branding and marketing strategies and, therefore, becomes a means of constructing an identity which is impelled to comply to the social, political, and cultural needs of its time.
She has participated in several dance workshops (Kalamata International Dance Festival, Deltebre Workshop Danza, ImPulsTanz Vienna International Dance Festival, BROCANTE International Circus Festival, DOCH School of Dance and Circus) and has followed a series of Fighting Monkey | RootlessRoot workshops throughout Europe. As a dance teacher and certified fitness trainer, she holds physical movement and improvisation workshops, which invite the participants to expand their bodily awareness and develop their movement identity, while building up strength, stamina, and flexibility.
Current
“I imagine that my skin is translucent, that it does not constitute the border where “I am” begins and ends. I hate compromises, I am an “all or nothing” kind of person. I can’t help but acting impulsively and savour life in its most ripe moment: NOW. I am passionate about art as a means of making sense to this extraordinarily inconceivable world we live in”.
February 2021: Founded Cross iMPact Civil Non-Profit Company, an organization which emerged from the deep belief that artistic innovation can be found in the meeting points between diverse art forms and techniques and that art is capable of producing a fundamental impact, in both the individual and the community. Always placing the body of both spectator and performer in the centre of attention, Cross iMPact Company aspires to create bonds between multidisciplinary artists and international artistic communities, and through its cross-disciplinary works, to challenge, problematize and establish essential dialogue between performers, artworks and spectators, particularly in issues concerning social and cultural identities, discrimination and human, animal and environmental rights. Penelope tries to live every moment to the fullest, since she sincerely believes that every conscious action, as insignificant as it may seem, is decisive to the shaping of social, political and cultural ecosystem.
▪ 2021/03/21-11. Artistic Residency for THAT DEAD SPACE BETWEEN US at Duncan Dance Research Center, Athens, Greece.
▪ 2020/10/27 – 19. Artistic residency for H.I.I.T. at P.A.R.C. / Fabbrica Europa, Florence, Italy.
▪ 2020/10/17 – 06. Artistic residency for H.I.I.T. at Murate Art District, Florence, Italy.
▪ June 2020: Received a relief fund from the HAMLET non-profit exhibition program, as a support for the ramifications of the Coronavirus pandemic.