In September of 1951, the exiled residents of the island of Ai-Stratis decided to stage a theatre performance there for the first time. They chose Aeschylus’ Persians. The censorship authorities allowed this because just four years earlier, the same play had been mounted by the National Theatre to celebrate the Dodecanese’s union with the rest of Greece. Moreover, Aeschylus’ text had always been used to underscore national supremacy and the continuity of a lineage dating back to ancient times. It was, therefore, considered the most appropriate choice in the process of reforming the leftist exiles. Besides, lines from the original drama, such as “Go ahead, Greek children” and “Now, you’re fighting for everything,” dominated the slopes of the “New Parthenon,” as the island of Makronisos (which also served as a place of exile) was called.
That performance on Ai-Stratis in 1951 was perhaps the first documented performance in Greece staged by those defeated in the official history—those whom the regime treated as the dangerous “Others” and whose struggle was condemned to fall into oblivion. It was perhaps the first time that instead of being used to celebrate the display of supremacy, Persians returned to its tragic origin.
Imitation of All is a music theatre and dance performance that incorporates elements of theatrical storytelling and visual happenings. At the same time, it aims to serve as the first phase of a research project on the blending of performing, interactive, narrative, and representational arts in premodern Southeastern Europe.
These hybrid performative events can be traced through fragments that, while insufficient, still support the assumption of continuities which, starting from late Greco-Roman antiquity, have come down to us as contemporary folk events or modern artistic manifestations through the post-Byzantine tradition. The lack of documentation regarding the historical accuracy and faithful delivery of the style, function, variety of themes, and form of these stage events during the crucial transitional period of the Dark Ages, in this case, allows for creative imagination: through the quest for a collective memory, we aspire to a contemporary autonomous artistic creation that showcases the fluidity connecting the past, present, and future.
Common Tale is a performance based on real-life testimonies from women sharing their experiences across various periods of 20th-century Greek history, including the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the Interwar Period, World War II, and the Civil War.
These stories illuminate war’s destructive consequences on people, regardless of time. They reflect the voices of ordinary people, capturing a shared reality that bridges the past with the present while reminding us of the need for a collective memory. Through the equal participation of deaf and hearing actors, a profound message about shared human experiences is conveyed. Using a bilingual storytelling process that combines vocal performance and Greek Sign Language, as well as physical theatre, and music-motor expression, diverse expressive forms are brought to the foreground. The stage action unfolds through interpretive music and motor references, as well as percussion instruments played by all performers, both deaf and hearing, in collaboration with an onstage musician, creating an enhanced and uniquely riveting theatrical experience.
A woman who is being pursued arrives in a small village. The Priest, the Mad Man, Sifis, the Teacher, and the Gossiper appear terrified, through their cries and deafening whispers, before the “public danger” posed by the stranger. Years pass. A young shepherd learns to walk a tightrope. The village is afraid. The blessing of being able to strike a balance on a stretched rope, high above cliffs and against raging winds, seems a sin to those who are easily pushed around, stumbling breathless on the ground. The ability to gaze like a vampire, both here and there, at the living and the dead, at strangers and your own people, at the just and the unjust, comes at a price: exile.
What perceptions of justice arise from folk tradition, and how have they endured to this day? What shame does the unknown bear? What is just, what is unjust, and what lies between them? Is the desire for justice linked to humanity’s eternal longing for happiness? This performance features a musical dialogue among words, verses, traditions, and fairy tales from this land and its history.
A performance that attempts to bring out the abrupt and violent process that turned Asia Minor refugees into infectious agents and a danger for the society. Asia Minor refugees were exiled, abandoned, or they died in quarantine hospitals that were set up in various regions of Greece.
The performance treats this historical phenomenon in a multifaceted way using contemporary scientific approaches: it explores – among other things – the power structures that cause it, its social and political considerations, and the concepts of morbidity/normality, “purge”, threshold, transition, and marginalisation as records of historical/social connotations…
The dramaturgical material is composed of real life testimonies and original fiction texts. The work is performed in an open space and at sea. It focuses on the body, its movement, the songs, sounds and voices of the actors, who blend with the audience from the beginning to create a community.
A group of people, a contemporary “chorus”, attempts to (re)compose a mind-blowing and at the same time ritualistic music-theatre performance about Smyrna, with strong images and narratives questioning fragments of the history of the Asia Minor Catastrophe and borrowing elements from ancient tragedy.
Pieces of history and historical documents are recited in chorus. Chorus, melismatic choral singing, use of phrases from ancient drama choral parts in translation or in the original, messengers’ narratives, laments.
These narratives and comments will be interrupted by real persons’ testimonies that weave the aching, blood-stained human web. Excerpts of testimonies from EXODUS, Koinos Logos, the narratives of Filio Haidemenou and Angela Papazoglou, and of soldiers on the front lines have been selected and pieced together in an original composition.
Four actors sitting around a table. The feast begins. Their food is newspapers, their laptops and mobile phones. They read and comment on the headlines of the Greek, Turkish and Cypriot press from 1922 to this date.
How does the Press work? As a propaganda mechanism or as an information medium? How is the event presented, as a defeat or as a victory? And what about refugees? Are they presented as people or as numbers? Is the national interest a Need? How do newspapers treat war, destruction, the uprooting, expulsion, and settlement of refugees?
What are the references to the Event throughout the years? How have the relationships among the three countries evolved? How have they been shaped?
The Semio theatre company, using the unique contribution of Islahane to the history of the Greek state and Thessaloniki as a connective tissue, suggests a double approach, with 1922 always at its center.
The work revolves around 10 short theatrical pieces that have “The Islahane’’ as their central theme. Created by very important writers and performed by acclaimed performers, actors, disabled dancers, dancers, opera singers, the works run through the history of adjacent peoples, religions, consciences, families, orphans, Muslims, Christians, metalworkers, people of labor etc.
The celebration of the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution, last year, and of the centenary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, this year, is an opportunity for evaluation and redefinition. The plays that will be presented in the exhibition, illuminate aspects of Greek social reality.
With small statements, we make a map of our soul. A list of memories, a list of the past. A collection of materials and images in a seemingly random order. A collage, an assembly of sentences that all begin with the phrase: I remember…
NOITI GRAMMI theatre group, with the promenade performance I Remember, proposes a dialogue between the Performing Arts and applied history, historical walks, the concept of a cultural promenade in the historical sites, and an experiential way of understanding the memory of every refugee in a world of turbulence and upheaval.
Two performers/guides attempt a tangible return to the past. They will lead a group of travellers on the routes of ancient topography, with the sound of voices being the supporter of collective memory. This tour will create sporadic and fleeting episodes of unexpected memories, in the form of a pre-recorded soundscape, which will be reproduced through the use of headphones.
After the Smyrna Catastrophe, around 12.000 refugees from Ionia, Thrace and Pontus arrived at the city of Volos. In 1923 the creation of a refugee settlement began, which was later called Nea Ionia (New Ionia) and evolved into a small community. Most of the refugees were working in tobacco factories, while they soon began establishing football clubs. One of them was Niki Sports Club, whose story begins in 1924.
Part a: Dressing-Room
In the in-between space of the team’s dressing-room, we follow the journey of the refugees and their arrival at Volos, their integration into the society and the creation of Niki Sports Club.
Through the use of complicated technological media, multiple sound sources, contemporary electronic music inspired by traditional Smyrna songs, speech and movement, we follow the journey through the sea until the first couple of years in the new land.
Part b: The Match
In the football field now, the struggle for survival, the competition with the native people, the promotion to the premier league and the integration into the new environment, is depicted through a choreographed football match along with usage of multiple cameras and site-specific projections as the court fills with fans, that is, the descendants that interact with the stage action.