Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses how dance practice in a multiethnic refugee camp in Greece transformed the relationship to oneself and to this off-site (out of sight) space: it generated a paradoxal and new relational dynamics of appropriation of an impermanent territoriality in which belonging is temporary.

Paper long abstract:

In March 2016, the closure of the so-called "Balkan migration route" left tens of thousands of refugees stranding in Greece. Fast enough, to answer this emergency, in spring 2016, the Greek government started settling temporary camps (tents and containers) to accommodate the people in different part of the country. After volunteering as a translator and cultural mediator with local and international NGOs at Piraeus port, I arrived in August to Skaramagas camp - in the outskirts of Athens. Skaramagas camp, one of the biggest, counts three thousand refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. A previous naval military base, it is also characterized by its cultural and linguistic diversity (Arabs, Kurds, Yazidis and Tajiks). I offered to implicate myself in artistic educational activities including dance practice and took part in social dancing events.

By analyzing a representative dance moment that took place in Skaramagas, this contribution takes it as a case study to reflect on how in this context of "unwilling waiting" and tensions (specifically - in here - due to cultural prejudices and EU resettlement programs favoring nationalities over others), practicing choreographed movements is connecting again people to their bodies, to each other and reviving cultural pride. In search of an anchor point, it reconstructs as well a lost space people feel the need to identify with. Through transposition and recreation, it generates a new relational dynamics with the space, an attempt to appropriate a territoriality in which belonging continues to be experienced as temporary.