Music without instruments, body percussions and movement are coming up soon in the capitalas the Nicosia International Festival presents another pioneering performance. The Bodies and Stories performance on October 25 is a collaboration between Simone Mongelli’s company Bodyterranean and Greek musician Giannis Haroulis, which brings to the forefront the most primal musical instrument: the human body itself.

Embedded in the performance is Mediterranean musical tradition and present-day music. Songs by Haroulis are transformed into movement and rhythm, creating a poetic narrative through polyrhythms, polyphony and immersive atmospheres. The performance blurs the boundaries between music, song, dance and theatre, speaking the universal language of bodily rhythm and expressing itself through voice and movement.

Macedonian melodies, seemingly rooted in antiquity, intertwine with African dances, exorcising primal fears. A Thracian song empowers women to claim their timeless right to self-determination and emancipation, while the anguish of unfulfilled love or death transforms into dance and stage mysticism. The contemporary artist expresses themselves through the words of exiled folk poets from Crete or Greek-speaking villages in southern Italy, and the rebetiko songs of Asia Minor composers become action and movement.

The songs in the performance, stripped bare and unarmed in their most essential form, recount stories that erase differences and call for equality and peace. Together, they create a ritualistic stage experience, expressed in the present moment through the most ancient and at the same time the most contemporary medium: the human body.

Bodies and Stories

Body percussion and song performance by Simone Mongelli’s company Bodyterranean and Greek musician Giannis Haroulis. Part of the Nicosia International Festival 2025. October 25. Nicosia Municipal Theatre, Nicosia. https://www.more.com/cy-el/tickets/theater/festival/nicosia-international-festival-2025/. Tel: 22-797979