Interview by Andrea Gombalová Dafni Krazoudi about “Urgency”: Bodies Under Pressure In "Urgency", the body becomes both witness and archive – a site where pressure, memory, and identity collide. Presented by Leonis Works at Berlin’s Haus der Visionäre, the immersive, site-specific performance dissolves the distance between audience and stage, inviting viewers into a 360-degree choreography shaped by tension, instability, and lived experience. Blending contemporary dance, classical technique, and real-time digital mapping, Urgency explores how systems of control – political, social, and internal – inscribe themselves onto the body. The audience moves within the work, not around it, as performers navigate themes of borders, belonging, and the invisible forces that shape how we exist. At the center of this shifting landscape is Berlin-based artist Dafni Krazoudi, whose practice moves between choreography, language, and material research. Her work resists fixed form, unfolding instead through transformation and subconscious impulse. We spoke with Dafni about intuition over vision, the body as a carrier of memory, and the quiet, often invisible processes of healing that shape her work. Julien Tell Interview by Andrea Gombalová Andrea Gombalová: Tell us about your upbringing and the first time you experienced a moment of calling when it became clear: I have a vision and I will follow it. Dafni Krazoudi: I grew up in a quite free, expressive, almost theatrical environment. Morning poems, impromptu dances in the living room. Once a year we would go somewhere new as a family, for a few days. I still look for all of that. Poetry, movement, spontaneity, theatricality, unstepped land. For me, the calling is almost the opposite of a vision. It is embodied. Flesh, gut, impulse. More vocatus than image. This is also how I create. Visions feel too cerebral to me. They project. I am more interested in what insists from the unknown, before it becomes clear, before it becomes visible. Describe a moment when working on something felt like “magic” to you. I was in the process of making Land Filled with Holes, a performance and installation for a group show at Alice Black Gallery in London in 2024. About a week before the opening, I was talking about the work with a friend when I suddenly had a flash of a childhood memory I had completely erased. This is often how trauma works when it remains unprocessed. I had fully detached and had no recollection of having lived this until that moment. Then it hit me. The work I had created was a re-enactment of that forgotten memory. I had staged my own trauma without knowing, the subconscious taking over. Transformation. Something becomes available. Healing is a kind of magic. The difference is that magic appears instant, while healing takes time. Julien Tell Daniel Saraiva How much of being creative is also a struggle with yourself, your insecurities, and doubts about whether what you’re doing is good enough? Oh, you touched my Achilles here. I struggle with expectations, mine and external. The conflict between what I do and what I could be doing. The tension between ambition and fulfillment. To say “enough” for today is not easy. There is a certain kindness in that word. It brings a sense of closure, and we tend to resist it. The more is the default. But closure is not an ending. It sets the tone for the next day. Have there been women in your life who supported you along the way and walked this path with you? What was special about that and what did it teach you? I have my mother and my dear friend Lexi very high up in my emotional pyramid. They have shaped a lot of how I relate, how I care, how I hold. At some point, though, you realise you have to become the mother and the best friend of yourself. To hold and sustain your own body. And I think women still forget that. We rush to take care of others first. If you could make a promise to your future self - what would it be? I promise my present self not to make promises. Daniel Saraiva Daniel Saraiva Credits Leonis Works presents at Haus der Visionäre “Urgency” April 2 & 3, 2026 Haus der Visionäre Eichenstraße 4A 12435 Berlin Tickets Read Next In Conversation with Tina Ruland: “Women have far more interesting stories to tell” Fräulein Talents: Lucia Farrow Fräulein Talents: Lesia Vasylchenko
