The performance draws inspiration from an anthropological finding: a healed femur from prehistoric times, suggesting that an injured person survived thanks to the care of their community. This finding resonates with Margaret Mead’s view that the first sign of civilization is not a technological achievement, but an act of caring for someone in need. From this premise begins a scenic exploration of care, survival, and collective responsibility. Someone stayed, shared the burden and the time, recognizing someone else’s vulnerability as their own. Friendship and mutual support emerge as the smallest yet most essential core of community. Through bodily action and speech, the performance examines the moment when trauma stops being individual and becomes a shared field of experience, an act of care and humanity.
Where do ideas that have never reached their final form go? The unfinished films, plays, or poems? And what about the people who leave? Where do they go? What happens to incomplete reports? Farewells that never turned into embraces? Can the trace of those absent inhabit our present, opening a window for us to look the future in the eyes? These questions inspired a performance, a piece about unfinished artistic creations that continue to fuel, like combustible materials, both art and life itself.
This work is a poetic stage composition that proposes a metadramatic and transcendent meeting ground for both absent and present creators, their unfinished works, their communities, and humanity. Relying on a fragmentary dramaturgy, the performance employs words – images, sounds, concepts, and reflections – left hanging by great “poets” to challenge itself against the existential, artistic, and political anguish of a life that passes, ends, and is cut, while also touching upon the comforting, humanistic dimension of great art.
A Sunday family lunch featuring Greek flavours that have endured over the years sparks stories about traditional dishes and their contemporary perception. As different generations meet and interact, we become aware of how our culinary traditions, as well as life itself, have changed.
Moussaka, pies, dolmadakia, and the spices of the famous Constantinopolitan cuisine evoke stories of our grandmothers, while bobota, also known as the pie of the poor, transports us back to the challenging period of the Occupation and the Greek people’s struggle to survive.
Traditional melodies intertwined with the bustling sounds of frying pans and boiling pots, along with stories about people and recipes we’ve all tried, create a performance that pays tribute to the meals that raised us.
Flowers have been silent witnesses to acts of sacrifice since the dawn of time. In mournful songs, medieval ballads, and folk beliefs, eternal roses are born from tales of love and blood. From Narcissus and the roses of the Middle Ages to poppies (which symbolize remembrance for World War I, among other things), flowers shape, inspire, and lead us to new stories of our own through the stories they witness. From folk songs to medieval legends, flowers appear where sacrifice leaves an indelible mark on memory.
The Alcedo Folk Band guides us through a sound and narrative journey, where folk tradition meets contemporary musical creation. The Greek and European civilizations are bridged with precious elements from folk poetry, mythology, and medieval tradition.
How does contemporary society perceive the significance of ideas? Can we put a price on an idea and sell it, as a model of life? Under what conditions and by whom can its value be determined?
Following the satirical spirit of Lucian’s original work Vitarum auctio (Βίων πράσις) and assigning the role of the buyer to the audience, this performance contrasts the philosophical theories of ancient thinkers with the culture of modern influencers, exploring the impact of the past’s intellectual legacy on the present, as well as the fate of philosophical concepts in the contemporary world and its future versions. Through stark sarcasm and humour, and a unique fusion of the ancient and modern worlds, this performance transforms into a philosophical journey, inviting us to join in, if not as interlocutors, then at least as observers.
“Tselementés,” the Greek synonym for cookbook, grandma’s old and cherished item, represents an heirloom of significant sentimental value. Browsing through it, we begin to feel a sense of nostalgia. However, as we delve deeper into its pages, what starts to emerge before us is the repression of a perhaps not-so-distant time.
The performance, inspired by the introductory texts of Nikolaos Tselementés’ Cookbook, the most iconic manual of Greek cuisine, serves as an invitation to reflect on gender roles and societal expectations.
Four performers, “good housewives,” use the Tselementés as a storytelling tool, taking turns in the roles of narrator, commentator, and acting subject while calling upon us to engage with the past and contemplate women’s position across time. Through flavours, smells, humour, and satire, we follow the story of an entire generation, along with the thread that connects it to our own.
*The performance is accompanied by Sandra Domvrou’s visual exhibition titled “Good Housewife.”