Andonis Foniadakis

Andonis Foniadakis, also spelled Antonis Foniadakis, was born in 1971 and grew up in Ierapetra, a town on the south coast of Crete. He took his first dance lessons with Niki Papadaki at a local dance school. In a 2021 interview he recalled that as a boy he had learned the basic traditional dances and danced with a traditional group in Ierapetra.

From 1990 to 1992 he studied at the State School of Dance in Athens. A Maria Callas scholarship then took him to Maurice Béjart's Rudra school in Lausanne, Switzerland, until 1994. He danced with Béjart Ballet Lausanne from 1994 to 1996 and with the Lyon Opera Ballet under Yorgos Loukos; most biographies give 1996 to 2002, while the Greek National Opera gives 1996 to 2000. In 2004 he also danced with Saburo Teshigawara's company Karas. Over these years he performed works by choreographers such as Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, Mats Ek and Maguy Marin.

In 2003 he founded his own company, Apotosoma, in Lyon. In March 2016 the Greek National Opera chose him from 36 candidates to direct its ballet for three years from September 2016, as the company prepared to move to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. The Béjart Ballet Lausanne biography states that he was artistic director from 2016 to 2018. He also teaches his own dance technique in seminars in Greece and abroad.

Foniadakis is known for speed and flow: his dancers are almost never still, and long phrases sweep across the stage. As a freelance choreographer he has created works for the Sydney Dance Company, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, Aterballetto, the National Theatre of Northern Greece and many others. One of his first large pieces, Selon désir (According to Desire), was presented by the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2004 (one video archive dates its creation to 2002), set to the opening choruses of Bach's St Matthew and St John Passions. In 2013 he made a new Rite of Spring for the same company. His Les Noces for Maggio Danza in Florence won him the Danza & Danza award for best choreographer of 2012 in Italy. He has also choreographed operas, including Rameau's Les Boréades, and coordinated movement for the 3D characters of Darren Aronofsky's film Noah (2014).

In Greece, his first production for the National Opera Ballet was Links (April 2016), set to Bach and Handel. Γαλαξίας (Galaxy), a piece between dance and theatre about the birth of the universe, opened in November 2016 as the first collaboration between the National Theatre and the National Opera. With Salema (2019) and Salema Revisited (2021) at the Athens Concert Hall he turned to the music and dances of Crete, giving traditional steps a personal, abstract reading.

His works stay in the repertoire abroad: the Dutch company Introdans staged its own version of Selon désir in 2023. In Greece, Γαλαξίας (Galaxy) received the award for best choreography of the Union of Greek Theatre and Music Critics in 2018, according to his Béjart Ballet Lausanne biography. His Cretan projects also opened a debate: he said that after the 2019 premiere some people criticised Salema online without seeing it, while the later performance in Chania went very well. Choreography is not Greek speech, but his Greek interviews are. Open his 2021 To Vima interview «Ένα αγόρι που χορεύει είναι ακόμη ταμπού» (A boy who dances is still a taboo). Its first line explains σαλεύω (I stir) as κουνιέμαι (I move). Then describe a dance you have seen in three sentences with δεν… αλλά… (not… but…), as he does in δεν χορεύω αλλά υπάρχω.

• The Greek National Opera chose him as ballet director from 36 candidates who answered an open call.
• For Darren Aronofsky's film Noah he coordinated the movement of the 3D characters.
• Galaxy was the first collaboration between Greece's National Theatre and National Opera.
• Salema Revisited grew from the 20 minutes of Salema to about an hour.