Katerina Giannakopoulou
MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST & DIRECTOR
PANDEMIA – interdisciplinary art film by Katerina Giannakopoulou (Director, Dancer, Actress, Producer)
THE TRAGEDY OF DOMNA VISVIZI – interdisciplinary art film in collaboration with Mixalis Iliaskos
AS THE WAVE BROKE…. – a film by Alexandra Bekiou with Katerina Giannakopoulou in the main role
LIVE ON STAGE….
ABOUT HER
Katerina is a multidisciplinary award-winning artist, director & filmmaker of Greek origins working and living in Cologne Germany. “I combine modern dance with flamenco and dance theatre using complex rhythms, sounds and music from all over the world to create innovative performances and films. My approach is always to deliver a powerful message on a theme through a story performed by a highly developed character using the power of music, dance and performative art.”
PANDEMIA, her multiple award-winning experimental music film (2020), is her first exclusively solo project which she directed, performed, danced in, and produced. It is a poignant cautionary tale on the topic of COVID19 from the perspective of Mother Nature as the protagonist.
Her collaboration with Mixalis Iliaskos, the founder of ‘’Greek Natural Videos’’ started in 2016 with their first multidisciplinary art music video “TO FILAXTO” with Dimitris Tektonidis as DOP.
Their role as a team and as co-directors of the GREEK NATURAL VIDEOS is to showcase their beautiful country and share the richness of Greece by combining poetry, history, music, dance and acting in a more modern and cinematically artistic documentary format. That’s what they did with “The Tragedy of Domna Visvizi” (2020), which was honoured under the auspices of the Greek National Tourism Organization and won 35 international awards.
She also had the privilege to be the main actress of the 60 award winning short film “AS THE WAVE BROKE,” directed by Alexandra Bekiou, who is preparing her future film with her incredible team alongside Katerina in the leading role.
EDUCATION
She was only 6 years old when she met her first teacher Pina Bausch who guided her when she entered the artistic world of dance theatre, giving her the opportunity to take part in all the involved aspects- from rehearsals to closing night.
Her formation at an early age was in classical ballet, modern dance, jazz dance, flamenco dance and voice training. Later she completed her education as a professional dancer and dance teacher at the University for Arts in Leverkusen at the age of 21.
After that, she moved from Germany to Sevilla, Spain where she became “Katerina la Greca” mixing flamenco dance with dance theatre and sharing the stage at international flamenco festivals with Icons like Rocio Molina, Belen Maya, Leonor Leal and more. At the age of 25 she started to focus more on acting, working in the theatre “Viento Sur” in Sevilla Spain where she got the opportunity to play several main roles such as Phädra (Racine), Celestina (Max Frisch) and Mirandolina (Goldoni).
At the same time, she worked as a solo dancer and performer with musicians like Raúl Cantizano, Juan Antonia Suárez, “Cano,” Behnam Samani and many more.
Subsequently, she decided to move back to Germany where she took 2.5 years of acting training at the Schauspiel Zentrum Hü̈rth in the areas of film and theater.