A curated international performance residency in a Natura 2000 landscape in Lake Kaiafa, Peloponnese region, Greece (Europe)

9–12 July 2026
Tutors: Dimitra Nikolopoulou & Eliza Soroga

The four-day site-specific performance & artist residency “The body as site, the site as body” at Lake Kaiafas is an intensive educational program in performance & live art offering opportunities for artistic research and creative experimentation within the natural landscape of the Peloponnese.

Participants will engage with fundamental tools for creating performance and live art actions in dialogue with nature and the extra-urban environment through site-specific approaches centered on the concepts of “place” and “body.”

Workshop participants will cultivate spatial and artistic methodologies on both research and practical levels, developing new individual and collective performance works while exploring new concepts in dialogue with the surrounding environment: the lake, the regenerated Strofilia pine forest, the two ancient therapeutic springs, and the distinctive coastline with its unique sand dunes. The Kaiafas area is a protected Natura 2000 site and has functioned as a thermal spa location since antiquity.

How do we create a site-specific performance?
How does the body function as a rich site of experiences, social and political identities, emotions, memories, etc.?
How can the poetics of a place be integrated into the compositional process?

Within the artistic residency framework, questions are activated through experiential practices aiming toward the creation of new individual and participatory collective works through a site-specific approach, where the natural landscape becomes the starting point of the work and enters into an interactive dialogue with its central concept, informing its structure, research, and development.

Body – natural landscape – movement – time functions as key conceptual axes.

During the practical sessions, emphasis will be placed on developing the spatial awareness of the artistic subject through the body, introducing notions such as time,

natural elements (water, flora, fauna, soil, etc.), scale, sensorial-motor experience, personal storytelling, spatial memory, rhythms of trust, and more.

The exercise toolbox includes: walking meditations, activation stillness practices, butoh, collaborating ensembles, scores, sensorial-motor actions, field research, community art practices, psychomotor exercises, voice-body-speech activation, non-linear narratives, and development of individual artistic poetics.

Exercises and activities combine both individual and collaborative processes and will primarily take place within the natural outdoor landscape.

2026

Dialogue with the Landscape of Kaiafas

The rich and distinctive natural environment — the lake, the coastline of exceptional beauty, Mount Lapithas, the characteristic sand dunes, the active wetland ecosystem with Mediterranean and striped terrapins, migratory birds, wildlife refuges, dense reed beds, the Strofilia forest regenerated after wildfires, the caretta caretta nesting areas along the shoreline, the historical continuity of the site from antiquity to the present, local mythology, the therapeutic identity of the springs, inactive railway tracks and the local train station, as well as the improvised seasonal huts built by local families until the 1970s — constitute fertile material for artistic exploration and reflection.

Natural elements (fruits, pine forest, lake, flowers, sea), history, geography, landscape architecture, perspectives, and light diffusion form an observational canvas that becomes the compositional foundation of artistic works, engaging with personal experience and the urgency of artistic creation in the present — the “here and now.”

Indicative thematic directions for open exploration include:
body & natural elements, human–nature relational dynamics, healing–nature–body relations, environmental and climate crisis, migratory birds and migratory worlds, etc.

Within the residency framework, participants will also have the opportunity to enjoy the therapeutic baths of the Kaiafas Thermal Spring, part of the Natura 2000 protected network, as well as access to the outdoor swimming pool.

The Kaiafas thermal springs are renowned for their baths; the healing properties of the water have been known since antiquity and are connected with rich mythology, as the caves of the springs were recorded as dwellings of nymphs. Historical writings (66 BC – 24 AD) already attest to the therapeutic qualities of the baths.

Information about the hydrotherapy center can be found here: 

kaiafas-springs.gr/ydrotherapeftirio/ 

Structure:

The four-day workshop is structured as follows:

• ●  70% methodological material for performance & live art creation with emphasis on developing site-specific spatial awareness through the body and its relationship to the natural environment

• ●  20% tutorials and feedback during the composition process

• ●  10% reflection and collective feedback around the works
  including theoretical framing and audiovisual documentation (photography, video, etc.).

Basic Info – Applications:

The workshop will be conducted in English.
The workshop is open to everyone regardless of age or previous studies and aims to form a diverse group whose members will share knowledge and experiences while co-creating new performance and live art works in dialogue with the natural landscape.

Applications:

To apply, please complete the form:
Kaiafas Residency, July 2026 

Application deadlines

• ●  15 May 2026 — domestic participants

• ●  30 April 2026 — international participants
  Due to limited hotel capacity, participation is limited and a selection process will take place.
  Domestic applicants will be notified by 16 May 2026. International applicants will be notified by 1 May 2026.

Participation Fee:

• ●  530 € + VAT for international participants

• ●  400 € + VAT for domestic participants (ID copy required) Early Bird

• ●  500 € + VAT international participants (deadline: 15 April 2026)

• ●  370 € + VAT domestic participants (deadline: 30 April 2026)
  The first three workshop days are full-time.
  On the final day (Sunday 12 July), project presentations will take place followed by departure.
  Participation fee includes:
  • one breakfast and one main meal daily (home-cooked food with vegan option) for 4 days
  • one hydrotherapy session at the Kaiafas Thermal Baths
  • access to the outdoor heated swimming pool for one day
  Payment instructions will be sent electronically to selected participants.
  Payment confirmation deadlines

• ●  30 May 2026 — domestic participants

• ●  15 May 2026 — international participants

Accommodation:

Accommodation includes 4 nights from 8–11 July 2026 at

 kaiafas-springs.gr/diamoni/, located on the small island of Lake Kaiafas.

see map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/xrZhoscNUPbzk3bL7

Accommodation cost is not included in the participation fee:

• ●  Single room: 43 € / day

• ●  Double room: 27 € / day per person (roommate option available)

• ●  Triple room: 22 € / day per person (shared accommodation)
  A climate resilience tax of 2 € per room per day is not included.
  These are special discounted rates exclusively for workshop participants.
  Detailed hotel information (facilities, services, etc.): kaiafas-springs.gr/ 

Transportation:

Travel to and from Lake Kaiafas is the responsibility of participants. Detailed travel information will be provided after participant selection.

Indicatively: 

Intercity KTEL buses operate two daily routes to Zacharo. From there, participants may travel via local bus (frequent routes) or taxi (approx. 10 minutes / approx. 10 €).

Cancellation Policy:

No refunds are provided except in the case of workshop cancellation by the organizers. 

For further information or clarification: kaiafasperformance@gmail.com

Important Dates:

Early Bird deadline (international): 15 April 2026 Early Bird deadline (domestic): 30 April 2026 Application deadline (international): 30 April 2026 Application deadline (domestic): 15 May 2026

Payment confirmation deadlines:
30 May 2026 — domestic participants
15 May 2026 — international participants

Hotel arrival: 8 July 2026 Workshop begins: 9 July 2026 Workshop ends: 12 July 2026 Departure: 12 July 2026

Instructors / facilitators:

Dimitra Nikolopoulou

Born in 1984 in Athens, she began studying theater during her teenage years. She has pursued studies in Fine Arts, Theater, Communication and Culture, History, and Philosophy. For the past seventeen years, she has been exploring the fields of performing and visual arts in a continuous search for convergence, sources, and directions. Her main areas of artistic practice include performance art, live art, contemporary stage language, arts-based pedagogy, and visual installations. Since 2015, she has collaborated with the National Theatre of Greece as a facilitator and coordinator of workshops in performance, applied drama, arts-based pedagogy,

while since 2010 she has been designing and conducting workshops in theatrical and visual play, performance, and related areas.

Education

She is a PhD candidate in the Department of Theatre Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, focusing on Performance & Live Art. She holds an M.A. in Directing and Acting, with her dissertation on site-specific performance (Open University of Cyprus). Additionally, she graduated with honors in Theory and History of Art from the Athens School of Fine Arts and in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. During her studies, she also attended courses in History and Archaeology at the University of Athens, and university programs such as Socialization of the Citizen through Art: Workshops in Artistic Education and Visual Arts (University of Crete), Performance: Theory and Practice (University of Patras), Theatrical Education (University of Athens), Performance: Theoretical Approaches and Practical Applications (University of Athens), and Art Therapy (University of the Aegean).

To deepen her exploration of performance, she attended courses at the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA, London & Berlin) and PAS - Performance Art Studies. She participated in international festivals, including Overlapping Kassel (Performance Festival, Kassel, Germany, 2022) and the Venice International Performance Art Week (Italy, 2019).

She has also attended workshops in physical theatre, Grotowski methodology, stage design (Athens School of Fine Arts), puppet creation, documentary theatre with Daniel Wetzel (Rimini Protokol), educational drama (Chris Cooper), and ancient drama at the Center for Classical Drama and Performance, among others. She completed the three-year Theatre Pedagogy and Theatrical Play program at Theatre tis Hmeras.

Professional Experience

Since 2015, she teaches performance and theatre-pedagogical workshops for all ages at the National Theatre of Greece. More specifically, since 2017 she coordinates the annual workshops Performance I, Performance & Live Art, and Performance in Context, focusing on enactment, contemporary art, post-dramatic theatre, and urban space for both professionals and amateurs. She has also led workshops in theatrical play and educational drama, courses for teacher training, Theatre, Arts and Literature, Theatre 360° (teenagers), sensory play and more.

Since 2024, she collaborates with Studio 11 ASFA (Athens School of Fine Arts) on artistic residencies and laboratory exercises. Since 2022, she has conducted lectures and workshops for the postgraduate program Greek and World Theatre: Dramaturgy, Performance, Education at the University of Athens, and undergraduate courses such as New Spatial Forms of Theatre and Expanded Scenography (Performance). She has also collaborated as a visiting lecturer in the postgraduate

program Visual Arts and Landscape: Approaches to Natural and Urban Space at the University of Western Macedonia.

Moreover, she has collaborated with the University of Patras (2021–23) in the program Performance: Theory and Practical Application. Works developed in her National Theatre workshops have been selected for the International Forum of Performance Art and the conference Performance: Theoretical Approaches and Practical Applications (University of Patras).

Parallel to teaching, she works as a curator and cultural projects coordinator. In 2024, she was curator of WILART, Performance & Art Festival, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and artistic curator of Cultural Destinations, in collaboration with Athens International Airport. In 2023, she curated the performance Grapefruits or the Seasons in the City at the Prague Quadrennial 2023 with the Culture Moves Europe scholarship. She participated in Overlapping Kassel (Documenta 15, Germany, 2022) and the Venice International Performance Art Week (Italy, 2019). She curated the visual exhibition Dehydrated at Hydra Port (2025, Melina exhibition space), WILART, Performance & Art Festival, Dhaka, Bangladesh, the student festival exhibition Comics (2026), No Man’s Land: Stories from Kimintenia in collaboration with the Municipality of Filothei-Psychiko (2022), Cases of Hyle at Pedion tou Areos (2022), among others.

From 2022–2025, she co- created with the Intercultural Centre Pyxis (Greek Council for Refugees) in terms of arts & museum education workshops and library art programs. She has collaborated with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Municipal Theater of Corfu, the Region of Attica, Technopolis City of Athens, the Athens Municipal Gallery, the Panhellenic Network for Theatre in Education, BITEF Festival – Parallel Activities (Belgrade), the Greek Archaeologists Association, the Museum of Greek Folk Art, NGOs Praksis and Arsis, and ‘Theatre tis Hmeras’, among others. She has also led artistic workshops in the Small Cyclades islands (Schinoussa, Iraklia) with the NGO Books Play. Previously, she worked as a journalist and participated in a documentary team traveling in the Middle East.

Directing

Recent directorial works include: ‘Yfantres’ (Municipality of Psychiko, Dec 2026), ‘A Better Tomorrow’ - N. Kourkoulos Stage, National Theatre (June 2025), ‘Human Zoos’- N. Kourkoulos Stage, National Theatre (June 2025), ‘Palomar’, Agios Achilleios, Prespa (June 2025), ‘Defile’ - N. Kourkoulos Stage, National Theatre (June 2025), ‘The Forests Were Burnt in Eastman Color’ -Experimental Stage, National Theatre (June 2024), ‘Aeolian Land’ - Experimental Stage, National Theatre (June 2024), ‘Blasted’ (2023) - Foyer, Experimental Stage, National Theatre, ‘Cherrytrees’- Experimental Stage, National Theatre (2023).

Her individual and collaborative performance projects include: ‘Stamna’ (Municipal Theatre of Corfu, 2022), ‘Take a Shit or Otherwise the Streets Will Always Be Ours’

(Lycabettus Festival, 2022), ‘A Flag’ (One Minute Space, 2022), ‘Grapefruit and Heterotopias’ (Walking as a Question – Prespa, 2021), and ‘Eyes Closed’ (2021). She has curated over 20 performances, 15 youth/student productions, and the poetic-visual performance ‘Baobab’ for early childhood (Technopolis).

Lectures

2024: Member of the organizing, artistic, and scientific committee of the international conference ‘Expanded Scenography, Performance, and Public Space’, Department of Theatre Studies, University of Athens.

2024: ‘The Walking Antigone’, Expanded Scenography, Performance, and Public Space’

2024: Women in Performance Art, international meeting Women in Leadership, WILART 2024, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

2025: White Jungles, International Walking Arts Meetings, Prespa (WAC 25) 2025: Palomar, Night Walkshop, WAC 25, Prespa

Nov 2024–Jan 2025: Workshops and presentations ‘Personas & Public Space’ in collaboration with Studio 11, Athens School of Fine Arts and the Department of Theatre Studies, University of Athens.

Oct–Dec 2024: Lecture series - experiential workshops on performance art at Studio 11, Athens School of Fine Arts.

Eliza Soroga (b. 1988) is a performance artist and director. She holds postgraduate degrees in Cultural Studies from the University of Athens and Performance Making from Goldsmiths, University of London. Grounded in contemporary artistic practice, her work explores representations of the uncanny and the transformation of everyday life into performative art.

She received the First Prize for Contemporary Art at the 11th International Arte Laguna Prize in Venice (March 2017) in the Performance & Video Art category for her work Women in Agony. In recognition of her overall artistic practice, she was awarded a fellowship by ARTWORKS through the 3rd Artist Support Program of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (2020–2021). In 2024, she was honored with a Special Award by TASA – Taiwan Art Space Alliance within the framework of an international artist residency program.

In 2018, she presented the performance Roots at the Athens & Epidaurus Festival. Her works and performances have been supported by numerous institutions including the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) (The Story of a Burning Peach, documentary, 2023; The Optical Fiber Dances in the City, 2025), the Greek

Ministry of Culture (podcast series and immersive sound performance Be Careful Not to Be Caught by Nightfall in Paleochora, 2025), Torino Fringe Festival (My Job Interviews, 2022), NEON Organization (Identity in Between, directed by Effie Spyrou, Run on Art production, 2021), Togatta Residence 041 Zao Town (Yume no hon / 夢の 本, Japan, 2022), the Municipality of Athens / This is Athens – Polis (Digital Benches, 2019), British Council Newton Grant (Sensing Spaces: a Performative Approach to Space, 2017), Dance Ireland / Teatro Espace (Liquid Love, Italy, 2017), Arts Council England (Yesterday I Was, 2017), and the National Lottery Fund England (Clockworks: Lost Traces, 2013).

Her work has been presented internationally at institutions and venues including the V&A Museum (London), Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture (Edinburgh), 3331 Arts Chiyoda (Tokyo), Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design, National Gallery Prague, Battersea Arts Centre (London), National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST), MOMus – Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Athina Virtual, OMNIBUS Theatre (London), Camden People’s Theatre (London), The Yard Theatre (London), Chisenhale Dance Space (London), OT301 (Amsterdam), Déda (Derby), Arsenale (Venice), the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation (Athens), Vouleftiko of Nafplio, the Museum of Modern Greek Culture, the Castle of Chora in Kythera, the Embassy of Japan in Greece, the Municipal Gallery of Athens, among others.

Her video art and documentary works have received significant international recognition, including Best International Short Film Award at the Swedish International Film Festival (2023); Honorable Mention at the British Indie Film & Music Festival (2023); Semi-Finalist at the Serbest International Film Festival (2024); Honorable Mention at the Vienna International Film Awards (2024); First Prize for Educational Film at the 11th International Archaeological Film Festival AGON (2022); Best Documentary Award at the West Side Mountains Doc Festival (2019); Official Selection among the top 26 films at Art Film Festival Cannes – AVIFF; Finalist at the International Films Infest Festival, New York City (2019); Honorary Distinction at the Video Art and Experimental Film Festival, New York City (2021); and participation in numerous international festivals including New York City Greek Film Festival, AegeanDocs International Documentary Festival, Beyond Borders International Documentary Festival (Castellorizo), Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Très Court International Film Festival (Paris), Cinedans – Dance on Screen Festival (EYE Film Institute Netherlands), Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Visions du Réel Film Market (Switzerland), 50/50 Equality in Cinema WIFT GR, Piraeus Port Film Festival, Docfest – Greek Documentary Festival, CONTEMPORARY VENICE – Architectures of Identities International ArtExpo, It’s Liquid Experimental Cinema & Video Art Festival, VAULT Film Festival (London), DIY Cultures (Rich Mix London), Athens Digital Arts Festival (ADAF), TANZRAUSCHEN – German Dance on Screen Festival (Wuppertal), as well as Cinedans, LOIKKA, 60secondsdance – Screen Moves Denmark, Screen Dance Festival Sweden, and Screen Dance Africa (Cape Town).

Soroga is a lecturer in the MA program Theatre, Education and Society at the University of the Peloponnese, where she teaches Scenography and Public Space. She has served as visiting lecturer at the Department of Architecture & Design at the University of East London; the BA (Hons) Architecture program at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London; the Middle East Technical University (Ankara); and the MA program Art & Design for the Public Space at the University of Porto. She has also taught as an academic fellow at the University of West Attica (course: Rhythm and Movement) and at Bridge to Kyoto, an Urbanist Centre in Kyoto, Japan.

Her published essays include Let’s Inject Some Randomness into the City and Negotiating Performance Architecture as a Pedagogical Tool in Performing Space Journal (2023 & 2026); It’s 2016 and I Am Still Trying to Find that “Beach Beneath the Street”: Re-Inventing Public Spaces, a Manifesto for Site-Specific Art(Performance Architecture Urbanism Space Theatre Group, 2016); Claiming Space: Subversion by Incursion in Kunstlicht – Journal for Visual Art, Visual Culture and Architecture; and The Functions of the Absurd in the Poetry of Tasos Livaditis (Poetix #6). She presented the research project Performance Architecture: Representing Embodiment at the research seminar Human Body as a Design Tool for Spatial Awareness at Umeå School of Architecture, Sweden (2021).

She has delivered lectures at the Department of Performing and Digital Arts of the University of the Peloponnese, the Department of Theatre Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (2019), the National Technical University of Athens with the lecture Architecture and Performance: Body, Space, Movement, Time (2018), and at the National Theatre of Greece (2023). Between 2018 and 2022 she collaborated with the Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival, organized by the Greek Film Archive.

Eliza Soroga is a member of the Greek Directors Guild, co-founder of the Performance Architecture School, legal representative of the non-profit organization Unclassified Actions, and a member of the award-winning Geraldine Pilgrim Performance Company (UK).

www.elizasoroga.com, www.performarch.com  

A Few Words about Kaiafas Lake:

 Kaiafas Lake is a lake in Greece, located in the Peloponnese, in the regional unit of Elis, in the spa town of Kaiafas. The lake lies next to the sea and is known for its thermal waters. It covers an area of approximately 150 hectares, has a length of 3 kilometers, and an average depth of 2 meters. Within the lake lies the small islet of Agia Aikaterini, where the Olympia Hotel, used for accommodation, is located. The lake is an important wetland, the second most significant in the wider region of Elis after the wetland ecosystem of Kotychio–Strofylia National Park, located approximately 50 km to the north. A pine forest, also known as Strofylia, separates the lake from the sea, along with distinctive sand dune formations. It is believed that Kaiafas Lake was formed around the 6th century AD, following a major earthquake.

Kaiafas Lake is a protected Natura 2000 site. Its flora includes dense common reed beds, the threatened plant species Cladium mariscus (locally known as “kopsias”), and Scirpetum maritimi. The lake also serves as a breeding area for Caretta caretta sea turtles.

Fauna in the area includes water snakes, Mediterranean tortoises, striped terrapins, European pond turtles, Mehely’s horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus mehelyi), and other species.

The Kaiafas Thermal Springs:

An ideal destination for lovers of Greek nature, the Kaiafas Thermal Springs, part of the Natura 2000 protected network, are located in the southern part of Elis, approximately 25 km from Ancient Olympia.

The area combines a beautiful forest, a picturesque lake, fairy-tale-like thermal baths—traditionally believed to have been inhabited by nymphs—and the Ionian Sea, accessible via the nearby beach of Zacharo.

Beyond their enchanting setting, the Kaiafas thermal springs are renowned for their baths, as the healing properties of the region’s waters have been known since antiquity. Their rich mythology further enhances their significance, as the caves of the springs are recorded as the dwellings of nymphs. Ancient texts dated between 66 BC and 24 AD attest to the therapeutic qualities of the baths.