A performance that serves as an architectural reconstruction of memory using experiences and scattered pieces of the habitat as structural materials. A story of return, to the childhood home, to the garden of an inner beauty and innocence, as the only way to draw hope and make “new cherry trees”. The last heirs will attempt to reconstruct a lost heaven on earth through the topography of memory. When the house will no longer be here. And when the garden will no longer be here… they will be forced to bloom themselves, the one for the other. A little ode to the lost paradise. The nostalgia of happiness. Life as a possibility, that – if it is sung, danced or confessed – can lead us to redemption. An anecdote, a funny story, a farce for God’s failure to give us a life that will last forever.
In its new production summertime, the bijoux de kant company uses poetic speech to talk about the issue of climate change and all those things that the senses of the body have long perceived while the mind has yet to fully grasp.
A young tourist guide. A radio producer at a provincial radio station. A strange encounter at the mercy of an unending, unyielding summer at the ruins of an archaeological site underneath a vicious sun. He’s waiting for winter to come to cool off. She anticipates November so as to live the love of her life under the rain. For as long as autumn becomes but a story and summer heats up, the return of the old succession of seasons, as we knew it, becomes the new utopia. A futile expectation. Lost in their conversations, Tereza and Chronis suspect that their need for coolness and rain will probably not be met and start taking their first timid steps towards awareness.
Alphabet, one of the most well-known poems of the groundbreaking Danish author and poet Inger Christensen, a modernistic poetic conception, at once prophetic, topical and timeless, with social and ecological concerns, is presented for the first time in Greece as a music theatre performance by Kentro company. Five performers – three actresses along with two onstage musicians – seek, through emblematic poetic compositions, a piece of the lost heaven, on a day, perhaps, after the end of the world. Their sharing of the stage will create a powerful audiovisual environment. The performance is targeted at our collective responsibility towards the environment and nature, sustainability and the continuation of life on the planet.
The production Cura, conceived and supervised by Vassilis Boutos and directed by Thodoris Gonis, is an allegory for nature, a cruel and tender ritual in a world that is thirsty and hungry for the Word. The Barber and the Supreme, the last couple on earth, will worship each other to be able to save their Mother Nature, everyone’s Ultimate Hairdresser.
The performance, set in an open air setting where the great celebration of cura is being prepared, includes original texts written by Glykeria Basdeki and Thodoris Gonis, as well as excerpts from works of ancient, medieval and modern Greek literature. The basis of the dramaturgical composition is the essay Aesthetics of Pindos (or The Delight of the Mountains), written in 1923 by Aeakos Pyrridis. Nymphs, mountains, and rivers are intertwined in a peculiar worship of Pindos that reminds us of both writer Alexandros Papadiamantis and poet Andreas Embirikos, offering us ideal passages that will accompany the dramaturgical “ritual”.
The active theatre company C. for Circus’ new production You, Nature! is a special theatre and music performance based on Chinese writer Yan Lianke’s novel The Years, Months, Days. It talks about a year when draught seemed to never end. From morning to evening, an old man known as the Elder, the story’s central figure, can almost hear his hair burning. A terrible draught forces the inhabitants of a remote mountainous village to flee – all but this old man and a blind dog, who could not withstand the exhausting journey across the mountains in search of food and water. The Elder is keeping watch over a single ear of corn that has grown in the infertile land. Devoted to it and to the hope it gives him, every single day he fights against defeat, every single day he wins a victory over death. A stubborn struggle for survival until the final dramatic climax, when one of them must sacrifice himself so that the other one can survive and keep the corn ear alive. A story about the power of life!
A wandering across Northern Greece, guided by great geographer Strabo, with the goal of introducing us to the climate and the works of the people of his and our time. Climate change is characteristically described not by Strabo himself but by “Pseudo-Strabo”: “Oh, I’ve messed things up / I’ve been swept by the tsunami / And I will go about at home / with a mask and in a diver’s suit”.
Two actors and an onstage musician converse, sing and improvise on texts of the past and experiences of the present. A hyper-sensitive citizen with particular ecological concerns is the only person who applies for the educational programme “Lifelong learning, environment, climate change and health”. A renowned academician undertakes the difficult task of educating him with impressive consequences.
Two performers introduce the audience to an archaeological site, not seen as a field of human activity but as a field of action of non-human beings, the animals that have inhabited it over time. From the animals of the past, those we recognise today on the geological fossils and archaeological material, to the animals that live there today, as well as to their future prospects. A renegotiation of man’s relationship with the world, towards a more wholistic understanding of the past and the present.
The production BESTIARIO is a continuation of the company’s ten-year-long effort to achieve a combination of theatre and archaeology, which they love so much to explore: how can theatrical means be used to approach the archaeological material from a fresh perspective, while strengthening the ties with the local community, and how can archaeological tools (like excavations, the study of findings etc.) contribute to the creation of a site-specific play?
A variation of ancient myths aimed at awakening people to the climate crisis. Persephone, the goddess of the vegetative cycle, has been locked into a new labyrinth by scientist Daedalus, a representative of humanity, so that she can provide him with the absolute control of earth’s resources. Her second abduction not only prevents her from having contact with her mother Demeter, the personification of the Earth, but also from returning to her kingdom, the Underworld. Demeter, weeping over her daughter’s disappearance, is looking for her everywhere again, causing extreme and destructive weather phenomena in her wake. She will be helped by Caerus, a symbol of opportunity, who will reveal to her where her daughter is being kept. There, Demeter will attempt to convince Daedalus to set Persephone free, yet blinded by arrogance, he will remain unmoved. After that, the two of them will exchange accusations in a speech contest. Will reconciliation be achieved or will both of them be led to hubris and destruction?
What are the prospects for Western Macedonia after the lignite phase-out? How will lignite be replaced to restore the environment? Historical documents, archival material and interviews with locals are all blended with fictional elements, illuminating the multi-aspected dimensions of the issue while bringing out the tragicality of the lack of an actual way out. At the heart of the dilemma is the attempted reversal of climate change, in face of the economic withering and decrease in population in the area. The people of Western Macedonia, if not given any productive alternative for growth, will have to balance between the slow death of economic withering and an equally slow death due to an environmental destruction with visible effects on their health. A performance blending theatre and music, with actors, a live band, and 15 supporting actors from local residents and representatives of civil society, who serve as a modern chorus, a witness and a judge.
2071 is a “dramatised lecture” by climate scientist Chris Rapley and acclaimed British writer Duncan Macmillan (Lungs, Every Brilliant Thing) that was first presented at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2014, and this year, approximately ten years later, will be staged for the first time in Greece.
It is a theatrical soliloquy based on Rapley’s scientific course and his findings. Analyzing possible solutions, he seems rather cautious about how the problem of overpopulation could be solved and places his hopes upon renewable energy sources, while pondering on what kind of future we want to create.
Manos Karatzogiannis, after a series of successful soliloquies (including Guardian of a Revolution, He, the Other and His Pants, Fleury’s Song) directs Antonis Myriagos with the help of musician Tilemachos Moussas, who performs live – and symbolically – theremin on stage.