Aria Boumpaki is a dance artist living and working in Athens. Raised on the island of Crete, she decided to move to Athens and study at the Greek National School of Dance (KSOT) at the age of eighteen. After performing for a number of Greek dance companies, she received a scholarship by the Onassis Foundation to continue her training at the Institut Chorégraphique International (ΙCI) (Montpellier, France), where she completed the exerce choreographic research program. Her artistic work engages strongly with the question of community. Exploring dance bodies in different realities, she creates projects that combine a multitude of formats, structures and localities, ranging from conventional stage pieces to exhibitions, site-specific works, community projects, text and video installations. Fascinated by the body and individual physical identity, she often invites non-professional performers to explore or attempt a redefinition of the notion of ‘stage bodies’, as well as that of the reality of ‘being’. She values both instinct and knowledge, investigates movement as consciousness and seeks to introduce tenderness as revolution. Alongside her work as creator and performer, Aria regularly gives workshops and designs pedagogical content. She has collaborated with the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the Onassis Cultural Center, Centre Pompidou, the National Theatre of Northern Greece and the French Institute of Athens. Her latest projects are supported by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports and she is a danceweb scholar for IMPULSTANZ -Vienna International Festival 2020.