On June 26 and 27, 2026, the Eleutherna Archaeological Museum will present a two-night site-specific program pitting contemporary dance against one of Greece's most extraordinary archaeological settings.
Set on the slopes of Mount Psiloritis, the museum was inaugurated in 2016 as the first on-site site museum in Crete, housing 5,500 years of material culture including finds from the warrior tombs and Orthi Petra necropolis. Its architecture and collections form both backdrop and interlocutor for the performances, pressing the question that animates the entire program: what happens when the fleeting body of dance moves through spaces shaped by permanence?
The program includes two distinct performances by the acclaimed dancer Tess Voelker. The first, "spurt," is an entirely improvised solo, new to this program. Voelker performs alongside music by Canadian cellist and composer Julia Kent, whose layered contemporary-classical work "Salt Point" provides one sonic field, and "Kairos" by London-based composer Laura Misch, drawn from her 2026 album. Everything else, including structure, movement vocabulary, and duration, is created live in the moment. Voelker's framing of the work resists fixed interpretation. In her own words:
this solo feels like the first emerging sprout from a seed: weary at first until it feels light, then naively evolving itself upwards against all gravitational truths. Beyond confidence, it searches for bravery within my femininity and beyond performance it searches for play with my own unfolding. I hope it leaves the audience feeling like they've just witnessed something maturely childlike.
Tess Voelker, dancer & choreographer
Voelker also performs in a new fifteen-minute ensemble piece choreographed by Andrey Kaidanovskiy, a 2021 Benois de la Danse nominee, drawing on the Greek myth of the Corybantes, the ecstatic warrior-devotees of the mother goddess Cybele whose ritual dance inspired the event's title. She is joined by Maria Kochetkova, Rebecca Horner, and Daniil Simkin. The full program also includes "Closer" by Benjamin Millepied, "Lohengrin" by Maurice Béjart, "Cacti" by Alexander Ekman, and "Les Bourgeois" by Ben Van Cauwenbergh. Together, these works bridge the gap between what has been preserved in stone and what can be expressed in a single, breathless moment.
The full program also includes "Closer" by Benjamin Millepied, "Lohengrin" by Maurice Béjart, "Cacti" by Alexander Ekman, and "Les Bourgeois" by Ben Van Cauwenbergh, placing the new works in conversation with a broader lineage of choreographic thinking.
CORYBANTES takes place June 26 and 27, 2026 at the Eleutherna Archaeological Museum, Crete, Greece.
About Tess Voelker
Tess Voelker is an American dancer and choreographer whose work moves between the deeply personal and the rigorously physical. Born in San Francisco in 1997 and trained across the United States before building her career in Europe, she rose through the ranks of Nederlands Dans Theater, working alongside Paul Lightfoot, Crystal Pite, William Forsythe, and Johan Inger, among others. In 2020, Aurélie Dupont commissioned her for the Paris Opera Ballet, making Voelker, at twenty-three, the youngest choreographer ever to create for that institution.
Since 2023, she has pursued an independent practice as both performer and choreographer, presenting solo work at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, the Musée National Picasso-Paris, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and La Gaîté Lyrique, and creating commissioned works for Ballet d'Jerri, Eisenhower Dance Detroit, and Ballett Dortmund. Her solo work featured in DANCÆ Modalities of Me in Berlin, with performances continuing through 2026.
Since 2023, she has pursued an independent practice as both performer and choreographer, presenting solo work at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, the Musée National Picasso-Paris, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and La Gaîté Lyrique, and creating commissioned works for Ballet d'Jerri, Eisenhower Dance Detroit, and Ballett Dortmund. Her solo work featured in DANCÆ Modalities of Me in Berlin, with performances continuing through 2026.
Press contact: Claire Petersen
Management contact: Norma Quinto
Management contact: Norma Quinto