Ίμαλις/Imalis >:
Dances & music that were performed around the well to celebrate the rising of the waters in springtime.

Ίμαλις/Imalis >:
An international creative laboratory, teaching workshop and repertory company for the revival and dissemination of Ancient Hellenic Theater, as a Living Tradition, under the auspices of the historic township of Epidauros.



Welcome to Imalis,
Imalis is a research and training center dedicated to the study of the performing arts in the Ancient Hellenic tradition. Imalis proposes, organizes and hosts a wide range of activities from in-depth professional workshops in the performing arts to healing and self-development retreats, conducted on location, and offering dedicated spaces and direct access to the archeological spaces.

2012 Workshop Series Announcement
The return to sources is a vital act of remembrance and creation which we call Imalis. The unifying theme of our 2011 series “Shed the skin, trace the path, set the post,” was an expression of the fundamental gestures which we explore through our workshops as part of an integral and organic process of revival. The common thread running through that first season’s workshops was our intent to reconnect with the performance tradition of Ancient Hellenic Theater as practitioners entering upon a path.
The same theme continues into 2012 with the same focus: Euripides' Orestes. How does one set out to walk an ancient, apparently forgotten path?

Train on site
Located in immediate proximity to the twin ancient theaters and sacred healing centers of ancient Epidauros, Imalis offers in situ immersive experiential practice and study in the arts of the ancient stage.


A vital learning context
Our work seeks to bring together local citizens, international artists and seasonal visitors into a vital learning context for cultural exchange and self-development, in one of the most unique natural settings and cultural destinations of Greece, and indeed the world.

Art & community
Imalis fulfills many important roles at once. It is an international network of collaborating artists and organizations, it is a partnership in local development and it is an artistic process.


A healing center
As its name indicates, Επί της Αύρας “upon the aura,” the sacred site originally chosen by the Asklepian healers of Chios retains all its telluric and healing qualities, which any visitor can experience to this day.

Imalis - Ἵμαλις:
1. dances & music that were performed around the well to celebrate the rising of the waters in springtime.


2. an international performance research and training center in the arts of Ancient Greek Theater in partnership with the historic township of Epidauros.

An ancient path
We imagine it overgrown. Though in the rough hills of Argolis, in reality far less than what we picture.
How does one find the path that leads to the palace of Orestes and Electra.
And there is a wall, they say, with no door. Ever crumbling by day. Blind, deaf hands rebuild it every night. It too is old. Older, even, than Greece. And keeps us out.
Speak to the wall for the door to hear. And you will enter the ancestral palace.
Walls, locked doors and labyrinthine corridors.

Orestes in the Year of the Dragon
What lies hidden behind? Walls, surfaces, interiors... landscapes, clouds and mirrors. Poor Orestes. One must multiply before one can divide. Poor brother, poor sister. Faces both familiar and strange. Masks. Ancestors and Gods, both forgotten and real, living and dead. Father... Echoes, symbols and the emptiness of space. Loss, and open sky.
For whom is the bell ringing in my Father's house? Whose lonely voice bellows in the courtyards and empty halls? Hungry, loveless, outraged... monstrous.
What lies in the ancestral palace. The monstrous and its ironies.
Tragic, pathetic, laughable. Oh, so terribly human.
Pure medicine.
Mother... A door into the tradition.
Our theme of 2011 continues as we take one step further down the path of ancient ethopoetics. How do we speak to the wall for the door to hear? The amphitheater seems flat and empty. Yet this is not just an illusion.
Opening a path. It seems simple. A path with heart. A thread, a bobbin that love alone unravels.
Sister. Take your first step, dancing. Surely this is a trap...
This year we are once again proud to have several outstanding artists and teachers joining us in our journey. We invite you to browse our site and learn more about our upcoming workshops as well as the open work sessions which we have programed for the coming summer months, beginning in June.

2011 Pilot Season
On October 2nd, 2011, after five years of planning and development, Imalis successfully completed its first test-run in the form of three laboratory-workshops, that began on August 29th with the workshop entitled “Tone and Inner Action,” followed by “Making the Body all Eyes” and “Dance of a Tragic Figure.” We exchanged rich experiences with our guest teachers Phillip Zarrilli and Atsushi Takenoushi and further deepened our research and training process. For a brief recap of our past year, with highlights and some cool media, please go here: Overview 2011...
Our first three laboratory-workshops not only reached the goals we had set, but went beyond, as we had hoped, feeding into each other with new discoveries that have carried well into our research agenda for 2012. In each case, we worked directly with the tradition as a system of practices that the practitioner must “deal with,” in other words as a set of concrete, empirical realities encoded in the ancient text of Euripides’ Orestes. The first of these realities is the native tongue, as an embodied system of articulated sound. The tongue of Euripides. The last of these is space, as a shared field of awareness in which takes place the intentional act of the performer, both vocally, physically and beyond. The space of the ancient amphitheater.