"The Last Dance" : Adrienne Marguerite

Short Experimental art film ~ fictional biography, based on real events made of vintage card postals, posters, and motion film.

It was 29 January 1929 when the famous artist Dora Varga, who danced every night at the "Fantasio" club, took her own life. Her real name: Adrienne Marguerite. In the Tourist Hotel where she was staying, at the junction of Ermou and Voulis streets, she was seen going up to her room in the afternoon with a bottle of 'MARCO' wine. An hour later, her moans led the hotel staff to enter the room where she was suffering from poison. Her dancing partner, Massado, rushed in and Adrienne told him: "I don't want to die here." A short time later she breathed her last at the hospital "Evangelismos".

Short experimental film based on the life of Adrienne Marguerite, connecting the pieces of a fictional puzzle with bitter humour and sincere motion. We take a tour within the Belle Epoque in Paris, we travel with the Orient Express through Europe to Athens and finally we meet the Art of Isadora Duncan.
The project was made for the Romantic University of Athens / Sozopolis and its research and exhibition "in situ" on the lives of people that commited suicide in Greece during the first part of the 20th century.
"The Last Dance" : Adrienne Marguerite was presented on the 29th - 30th of January (same date with her death). The screening of the film was followed by a dance performance with Isadora Duncan's choreographies. [https://youtu.be/QCnQZb2So9g]

  • Alkistis Voulgari
    Director
  • Alkistis Voulgari
    Writer
  • Room 37 Artworks
    Producer
  • Alkistis Voulgari
    Key Cast
  • Romantic University of Athens SOZOPOLIS
    Research
  • "Claire de Lune" by Claude Debussy (David Oistrakh, violin)
    Music
  • "Yukali" by Kurt Weill
    Music
  • 1920s dances, featuring the Charleston
    Music
  • "Filmmusik" by Charlie Chaplin
    Music
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    "Ο τελευταίος χορός" : Ανδριέν Μαργκερίτ
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 13 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 11, 2022
  • Country of Origin:
    Greece
  • Country of Filming:
    Greece
  • Language:
    Modern Greek (1453-)
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Ιεροφάνεια - The revelation of the Sacred
    Athens
    Greece
    January 29, 2022
    Collaboration / Contribution to SOZOPOLIS, Athens
  • Martyrology
    Athens
    Greece
    January 30, 2022
    Collaboration / Contribution to SOZOPOLIS, Athens
  • Award Winner - Best Experimental Dance Film at 11th Andromeda Film Festival
    Istanbul
    Turkey
    November 24, 2022
    Asian Premiere
    Award Winner
  • "Aller Retour", part of International TYPO Mail Art Project 2021, Museum of Literature and Printing in Grębocin
    Grębocin, Poland
    Poland
    January 1, 2021
    International TYPO Mail Art Project, Exhibition
    Official selection
Director Biography - Alkistis Voulgari

Alkistis Voulgari was born in Athens. She is an actress and dancer specializing in Isadora Duncan’s Dance Technique.

The last two years she started her own filming experimentations and performance creations which embrace Theatre, Poetry, Literature, Dance and Radio Art.

Her work has been presented in many different countries, in festivals, exhibitions and theatres as the Short film Panorama and Academia Romantica of Athens, Avatar Center and Porcovete Pictures in Canada, UNU – Flores and Technische Sammlungen in Dresden, International Multimedia Art Festival in Serbia, Verti Films in Prague, On the Rocks Film festival and Festival del Cinema di Cefalù in Italy, Museum of Dead Words in Brooklyn, NY.

The start was made by the experimental short film «Dancing in the Silence» from the «TERRACE PROJECT» which was hosted at Bibart’s Biennale Internazionale D’Arte di Bari and received an honourable mention from the Navajo Film Festival.

She is gradually visualising and working on the reconnection of the Theatre with its natural roots by improvising and exploring the primitive idea in an open, natural space where the film camera becomes the "eye of the director" and an eternal narration of the theatrical, performative, human and life experience.

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Director Statement

After a long time of personal and artistic research in many forms of Art as Theatre, Dance, Poetry as well as many different artistic ways I embraced strongly the idea that the most important Art is Life herself. Being an artist, for me, means to live sincerely and deeply the experiences that come along and then transform them into art.

That makes your unique way of expression and you find your “inner stand”. From this point everything becomes easier and the feeling is like you ride on a smooth river flow. Under this manner I create the last years performances that contain substances from Theatre, Music, Literature and Dance.

My base is the Art of Isadora Duncan and the Plastiques of Jerzy Grotowski in order to explore body movements, all the principles of Actor’s Studio as a guide in theatrical expression and Improv creative writing that helped me since the age of 9 to explore myself.

I never stop to learn, discover and interact with new artistic expressions and embrace collaborative work in all forms. It is always a pleasure to share and exchange new ideas and improvise on and about life’s special circumstances. I believe that we, artists, have a very important role to play in the coming years because this world needs for sure creative solutions in order to continue to exist. We must never give up but be flexible and playful in every situation that emerges.