Valia Alexandratou

Valia Alexandratou was born in Athens. She studied dance at the Superior School of Classical Dance, Anna Petrova. In 1991 she settles in New York and specializes in contemporary dance studying at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, Perry Dance School and Alvin Ailey School. She also studied analysis and teaching of Martha Graham contemporary technique at the Skidmore College (Saratoga Spring N.Y.), where was chosen as demonstrator and later as dancer at the Pearl Lang Dance Theater.

She starts choreographing in 1996 and a year later establishes the Analysis Dance Company, presenting performances in N.Y. as choreographer and a dancer of her own work. Her artistic statement is expressent by the perception that "to re-envision dance, dance to the visual". Valia Alexandratou aims artistically to the reformation of the primary source of dance movement through the combination of visual and choreographical elements.

In 1997, at the exhibition space Union League in N.Y., she presents the performance "Stanting in Motion",combining dancing with visual arts. In 1998, the choreography "Continuous Painting" based om the work of the abstract Greek American painter Nassos Daphnis, that has been characterized as a re-definition of abstraction, was presented at the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse. Art critic Jack Anderson wrote in New York Times "A canvas for evoking a formal spirit... A choreographer painting with movement...".

In 1999 she receives sponsorship from the "Foundation for Hellenic Culture" which organizes a special performance at City Center Studio 5, with her works "Woman" and "Desire". The choreography "Nine", was presented at the theater Tribeca Performing Arts Center and was inspired by nine paintings of the visual artist Eleni Kalokyri, based on Dante's "Devine Comedy" and describing allegorically a journey of Angels to Memory and Oblivion.

In 2000 she collaborates with the State School of Dance in Athens, where her choreographies "Oblivion" (2000), "Red Waltz" (2001), "Angel of Music" (2002), are presented at the Athens Concert Hall. In 2003 returns to Greece after invitation of the State School of Dance in Athens, where she works as a call-in choreographer in repertory (Analysis Dance Company), teaches Martha Graham contemporary dance technique and gives seminars on the theory of choreography. Her choreography "Nocturne" in W. Lloyd Webber music was presented at a special event of the Foreign Office for the Greek contemporary visual artists, in collaboration with the Hellenic Academy of Modern Art.

In 2004 she creates the choreography "Hading Over" especially for the State School of Dance in Athens, which was presented at the Athens Concert Hall, along with the creations of other choreographers from U.S.A. In 2005 a special preview version of the choreography "Variation N.D." was also also presented at the Athens Concert Hall by the State School of Dance in Athens. In 2006 at the Acropol Theater of the National Lyric Stage, she presents the performance with choreographies "Variation N.D.", which forms an attribution of her choreography "Continuous Painting", based on new selections of the abstruct paintings of Nassos Daphnis and "Showtime" which is inspired by William Shaekspear's "Twelfth Night".