Christos Papadopoulos turns teenage revolutionary hope into a demanding dance piece

Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos says his new work, *My Fierce Ignorant Step*, draws on the hope and revolutionary certainty he felt as a teenager. Against a backdrop of global crises that have left him discouraged, he wants the dance to prompt people to act rather than simply look back nostalgically.

Papadopoulos found that trying to make an optimistic piece directly led to a dead end. He instead gave dancers long, technically and rhythmically difficult phrases that required them to support one another; overcoming them together created a shared sense of joy. He also drew on Odysseus Elytis’s 1959 poem *Axion Esti*, which shaped his early political ideas. In 2025, Papadopoulos won the first Rose international prize for choreography for *Larsen C*, receiving £40,000, part of which he shared with dancers and part of which went towards a new production.