The Dark Side of Memory/The Pier is a musical multimedia performance about the collective trauma of “the Asia Minor Catastrophe” and the twofold substance of our roots. It is structured around testimonies of historical unnamed protagonists, which, during the performance, are voiced by an unseen person.
Small pieces of living memory, gleaned from the sacred pool of the dead, drip their blessing onto the present, weaving the ground on which every wound rejoices and heals. The living root of the catastrophe sprouts underground in the body of Greece, founding an Asia Minor which is more real than the actual one.
Everything is abandoned to the ocean of the inevitable, transforming the throng of the uprooted into an international symbol. Music is an islet of consolation, a hint about the inner homeland, towards which the refugees unceasingly march.
On 15/12/22 D. Gounaris, N. Stratos, P. Protopapadakis, N. Theotokis, G. Baltatzis and G. Hadjianestis were sentenced to death for high treason as the main culprits for the Asia Minor Catastrophe and were executed at Goudi. In the morning of that same day, the President of the Extraordinary Military Tribunal, Al. Othoneos, reads out the verdict and withdraws without saying “the trial is concluded”. The trial of the six was never concluded technically.
Freedom to Die is the trial and reenactment of those events that followed the verdict and those that were hurriedly kept secret “to convince public opinion that all lawful procedures were abided by”.
Nowadays, how many trials and what kind of trials are set up “to convince the public opinion”? How many real events are disguised as fictitious ones and vice versa? And how does each one of us perceive and interpret the world surrounding us?
In a directed performance of music and dance, the one hundred performers together with the orchestra and “Ionia” choir, the soloists, the dancers and the narrator meet the exceptional groups “Anatoliki Romilia”, “Horostates” and “Alismonites Patrides” Larissa, dressed in their authentic traditional costumes.
They take us a hundred years back to Smyrna with its sounds, colours, aura and culture. Smyrna was a multidimensional city that flourished but was finally destroyed and its residents give us a strong message of life and encouragement starting up new lives together in various places in Greece, such as Nea Ionia in Volos.
The great grandchildren of these refugees through performance of songs and dances, full of light and energy , bring us a message of hope, joy, life and promise for a better future.
A musical journey on the occasion of the centenary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, featuring Glykeria, the most important singer of Smyrnaean and traditional songs.
Glykeria and her company on stage will take us on a journey to the musical paths of the East. From the sea of Smyrna to Constantinople and Bosporus, and from the Cappadocian market to the Greek ports and inland, where great composers from Asia Minor ended up as refugees, bringing along such songs as: “Apo xeno topo”, “Tzivaeri”, “Elli”, “Smyrnia”, “O emetic”, “Hariklaki”, “T’ apofasisa”, “Armenitsa”, “I Xaveriotisa”, “Karotseri trava”, “Xerizomos”, “Kapia mana anastenazi”, “I Smyrni mana kaigete” etc. Alongside her, singer Dimitris Kontogiannis and a multi-member orchestra.
With music supervision by composer and maestro Stelios Fotiadis
The new choreographic work The Breath of the World by Mariela Nestora / YELP Dance Co. focuses on breathing as an experiential relationship of the body with the world. In a climate-changing world, plants are our most important co-habitants. Our relationship with them is based on reciprocity. We breathe in the oxygen they exhale and they inhale the oxygen we breathe out. How can we reinforce the ecological affinities that cultivate the concepts of care and reciprocity?
Three dancers and three musicians weave together a creative project that brings out breathing as a biological, psychological, existential and spiritual crossroads, while exploring ways to co-exist and interact with different bodies. The world’s breathing is timed with sunset, it awakens empathy and highlights every audience member’s unique perception. The performance’s ephemeral “organism” becomes perceived as part of another greater ecosystem, while the world’s breathing mechanism becomes activated as an experience but also as a gathering of different species.
A concert that, through the creative use of multimedia, John’s Revelation and digitally altered Fayum mummy portraits, touches upon the mental trauma of the age-old, constantly lurking destruction that is nowadays called climate crisis. The production includes multiple projections and a surround sound system, audiovisual digits created in real time, an actress performing with live music, debates between scientific discourse and sacred texts, multilingual accounts of liturgical rituals from across the world, as well as heretical speech delivery by the actress, along with an unexpected use of soundscapes by the musician and Studio 19st. The performance is grounded on the standpoint that man is not the centre of this universe but just a guest in it, and that the climate crisis is a huge chance to establish a culture of a Sacred Indestructible for our common home in the present day.
The Dancers of the North present Commedia Divina, a new production choreographed and directed by Tatiana Papadopoulou. Commedia Divina is a stage transcription of Dante’s journey across the three borderline destinations of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, seen through the prism of climate change.
The emblematic work of world literature, Dante’s Commedia Divina is a modern environmental allegory. It fascinatingly captures man’s unbreakable relationship with nature. The poet’s journey across the three Kingdoms of the dead of the Catholic worldview includes “travellers’ accounts” of the Underworld. Modern-day communities feel the rising environmental pressures and seek a way out, just as the poet is looking for an exit. Passing from the overheated Hell to Purgatory, where nature is “normalized”, he ends up in Paradise, the place of absolute harmonization, where man is reconnected to nature.
“And yet, the Earth moves!” said Galileo in 1610 and humanity had to come to terms with the idea that the Earth does move. In 2023, however, we must accept that the Earth trembles and reacts against human interventions.
At the crossroads of art and technology, visual and musical performance, GAIA produces a different narration about the Earth and the way we should be inhabiting it. Inspired by the rich theoretical work of Bruno Latour and Frédérique Aït-Touati, this new – visual and stage – narration about the Earth is both about man and non-human factors, without however putting aside the human element – as is often proposed by the meta-human discourse. Yes, we do experience a destruction. But that can be reversed. We need to produce a new world creation, by renewing our representations of the terrestrial, biotic and abiotic world.
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.
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?