Patricia Apergi

Patricia Apergi was born in Athens; her published biographies do not give a year. She began dancing at the school of Niki Kontaxaki and went on to study theatre at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, in its Department of Theatre Studies. She then studied dance at the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis in France and choreography at Middlesex University in London. In 2006 she founded the contemporary dance company Αερίτες (Aerites), which has produced her stage works ever since.

European networks soon invited her. She was a modul-dance artist of the European Dancehouse Network in 2013–2014 and an associate artist of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon in 2016–2017. In 2017 she created Prometheus and the Rebels of Today as guest choreographer of EgriBiancoDanza in Turin, and in 2019 she worked with dancers of the Gdańsk opera in Poland and with the Italian company Aterballetto. In 2021 she choreographed National Adulthood for the Ballet of the Greek National Opera, and in 2022 Newtopia with the Austrian group Bodhi Project. Teaching runs alongside the stage: she teaches dance and theatre at the Leonteios School in Athens, taught choreography at the Anna Petrova–Maro Marmarinou professional dance school from 2016 to 2020, and from 2013 to 2020 led a dance programme for people over 65 at the Onassis Stegi. She served on the board of the Athens Epidaurus Festival from 2020 to 2022.

Apergi's main subject is the body in the city. For Era po Vera (2012), staged at the Onassis Stegi, she explained that the company began with movements born on the street, often among poorer groups seeking a voice: parkour, street dance, capoeira, African dance, protest and clashes. They mixed this code with contemporary dance to build what she called the city's movement glossary, a kind of danced graffiti of Athens. Πλάνητες (Planites, The Wanderers), from around 2013, had an all-male cast and treated the street as a place of wandering, of hope for a better tomorrow and of meeting the stranger.

Cementary (2017), again at the Stegi, came, she later said, at a time when she felt defeated, and its bodies looked crushed by gravity. Πολήττες (2018) turned to the Arab dabke, once danced on rooftops and later a dance of resistance, to show movements that fail and recover; she linked it to πολίτες (citizens) of a country living through ήττα (defeat). Ο Οίκος της Ταραχής (The House of Turmoil, 2023) borrowed from voguing and krumping, where chosen families support each other. Hystory (2025), shown at the Athens Epidaurus Festival with five women, is the female sequel to Planites. Its title plays on the ancient Greek ὑστέρα (womb), the source of the word hysteria, and the English word history.

Apergi also builds places where new dance can grow. In 2021, with Eleusis 2023 European Capital of Culture, she founded U(R)TOPIAS, presented as the first choreography academy in Greece. In 2018 she staged Πολήττες revisited in the ancient stadium of Epidaurus with 90 dance and theatre students from around the world. In July 2026 she brought Τόσαις φοραίς τόσο κοντά να είμαι to the Kalamata International Dance Festival, a shared evening with music by Giorgos Koumentakis; her part draws on Cavafy's poem Γκρίζα (Grey). For a learner, try her urban theme yourself. Picture a city square and move an imaginary dancer with short Modern Greek sentences: Ο χορευτής έρχεται από τον δρόμο (The dancer comes from the street). Πηγαίνει προς την πλατεία (He goes towards the square). Then put one dancer μέσα (inside) a circle and one έξω (outside).

• Before choreography, she studied theatre at the University of Athens.
• From 2013 to 2020 she ran a dance programme for people over 65 at the Onassis Stegi.
• The title Hystory joins the ancient Greek ὑστέρα (womb) with the English word history.
• She sat on the board of the Athens Epidaurus Festival from 2020 to 2022.