Region: Crete

Limen – A Musical Performance About the Memory of the Future

The performance aims at capturing and presenting the osmosis of cultures that forever changed the city of Heraklion, focusing on the moment of arrival and reception for some, and on the moment of separation and abandonment for others, at an emblematic part of the port, a fortress that can be both a prison and a refuge.

Refugees of then and refugees of now, descendants of refugees and locals who received them, documents, press articles, literary excerpts, poems, personal testimonies and experiences come into light to tell audiences a story that connects peoples and cultures to this date.

A fourteen-member ensemble consisting of actors, musicians, and “specialists” will attempt to revisit historical events that shaped the city of Heraklion through the stories of its citizens.

COMMON GROUND – Those Who Left, Those Who Came

“How people are alike! If we let them be free, they immediately come together and love each other.” Language. A bridge that reaches the heart of the interlocutor and creates at once a bond and a commitment… Eh, and there’s also food! Three generations. People from Asia Minor and Turks from Crete meet at a common ground, the table. They cook. They feel nostalgic.

“Nostalgia is an old thing you remember. History is an old thing you don’t remember. My parents named me Ozlem, which means “nostalgia”, for the sake of the motherland they are nostalgic for, and Pelagia for the sake of the sea that unites us…” What is a refugee? Identity? Motherland? What is common ground? Can such whispers be heard in the complexity of political decisions?

A work based on our memories and the narratives wrote down by Maria Tsirimonaki in her book Those Who Left, Those Who Came.

PARODOS

On the occasion of the centenary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, Mneme theatre company revisits the atmosphere of those days through Kosmas Politis’ emblematic PARODOS, a chapter interpolated in the middle of his novel “Stou Hadjifragkou” that introduces us to the greatest tragedy ever experienced by the Greek people since the birth of the Greek State.

Its literary value is unprecedented as it manages to capture our imagination, both metaphorically – by calling our attention to the value and beauty of the place – and literally – by transporting us to the centre of the tragedy that unfolded during the last days of August 1922 on the coast of Smyrna.

The production is accompanied by the original music of composer-pianist Dimitris Droumboyannis, performed live onstage by three musicians.

Green Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

The production Green Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, written and directed by Nikos Dafnis, is based on the following concept: A famous environmentalist has arrived to give a lecture about the environment, interrupting the rehearsal of a group of actors preparing a theatre performance. The “professor” proposes to them to improvise (as artists) on the things that he himself (as a scientist) would like to talk about in his lecture. And so the show begins…

The work is about the degradation of our life from rampant industrial growth and the brutal and unpunished exploitation of the natural environment. The contamination of water resources, reckless deforestation, the invasion of chemistry into the food chain, the extinction of free space in the cities etc. are all problems that audience members of all ages can relate to. The choice of the old known directorial device of “theatre within the theatre” encourages child spectators to get involved in the show.

The Four Seasons

The production The Four Seasons presents an imaginative representation of the seasons meant to introduce children to the concepts of the alternation of natural phenomena and the way this alternation affects nature and life itself. Through humorous dialogues, singing and dancing, as well as videos, the messages will be conveyed in a lively and joyful way.

The text written especially for this production by Chloe Mantzari gives each actor the opportunity to introduce themselves and personify each season. Although one cannot offer an immediate solution to the problem of climate change, one can, however, show children the way they can be familiarized with the problem, connect to its daily progression, and find out ways to take action against it. The final goal is for them to leave the show having become more responsible and with the hope that the planet can be saved. The lyrically crafted lyrics of the songs follow the same style. Euripides Zemenidis’ original music lends a lighter touch to the show and inspires the dance parts.

About the Nature of Things

The combination of Epimenidis, a figure between legend and history, and Lucretius’ philosophical poetic work About the Nature of Things has been the inspiration for this year’s artistic meeting at the timeless cultural magnet of Ideon Andron. This year’s cultural meeting revolves around a composition of multidimensional art forms inspired by the philosophy of reapproaching Nature and man’s relationship with the environment. Using as tools different art forms and techniques or handcrafts that have been historically developed in the Cretan Culture, such as weaving, pottery and woodworking, along with visual arts, theatre and the dominant musical production, Epimenidis II treats the concept of man’s offering to the environment in which he lives, creates and evolves.

The event About the Nature of Things will be structured in three thematic units starting in the afternoon (18:30-19:00) and ending in the evening by 22:00. More specifically:

Presenter: Mirka Skoula (Cultural administrator, UCL)

• Part Α: The beginning of creation, from Nature to Use (18:00-19:30)

Open exhibition of craftworks: pottery, woodcarving and weaving

Featuring: Giorgos Dalambelas (pottery, Keramion, Margarites, Rethymnon), Manolis Xylouris, Aristea Xylouri (weaving, Traditional looms, Anogia), Stefanos Plousis (woodcarving, Anogia)

• Part B: Theatrical and Visual Design (19:35-20:00)

PandemonCracy – The Panic of the Days at Nature’s Pan-daemonium

Visual art event by artist Georgios Bounias and actor Giannis Athitakis, inspired by the Homeric hymn to god Pan. A visual art and theatre composition.

• Part C: Music event (20:10-22:00)

An original musical tribute inspired by nature and the environment in its many manifestations.

With the participation of: Kostas Fasoulas (lyricist), Giannis Kalomiris (musical creator, lute), Ioanna Kalogeraki-Kalomiri (mezzo soprano), Erini Tornesaki (musician, performer, assistant professor at Boston’s Berklee College of Music,), Ilias Zoutsos (classical violin soloist, lyrist, Doctor of Music Studies of the Faculty of

Philosophy), Bernardo Isola (musical creator, lute, Phd candidate in environmental protection issues)

The Cherry Orchard or At the Museum’s Garden

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.

Breathing In Three Strings

Georgia Dakaki, a master of the Cretan lyre and a performer with a great knowledge of Greek music, converses on stage with Takis Chrysikakos in the music theatre performance titled Breathing in Three Strings, where music and singing engage in a dialogue with poetry and prose literature. The two artists join their forces to produce one single voice of awakening to everything that is at stake at the threshold of climate change and its non-reversible effects: along with the sea, the forests and the sky, we also run the risk of losing that great part of our national heritage that is inspired by all these elements, since references to nature, both in music and literature, will become increasingly more unfamiliar to each subsequent generation. We take a stand against this threat with a celebration dedicated to nature and its representation in Greek music and literature.

The Secret of the Tree

Behold theatre company presents The Secret of the Tree, a production targeted at youth audiences in an effort to make them explore and take a stand on issues like climate crisis and the co-existence of man with the environment. It turns an industrial monument at Panormos, Rethymnon into a space for playing and experiential learning, by blending different art forms and theatre-pedagogical techniques. The goal is to motivate young audience members to ask questions about the present and the future in a constantly changing world, but also to grasp the relationship developed by man with the other – human and non-human – entities with whom he lives together on the planet.

Starting off on our adventure at an old carob mill that has been turned into a cultural centre, we get to know the history of the monument that is inescapably related to that of the carob tree and its fruit, the island of Crete and the entire Mediterranean region. The carob tree, despite having been discredited by people for a certain period of time, continues to stand and grow even in places where it has not been deliberately planted; it continues to bloom in conditions that are absolutely hostile, selflessly offer its fruits, and look into the future while remaining firmly rooted in the deep past.

We Know How to Swim

An interactive music theatre show, the new work We Know How to Swim is coming to take younger and older audiences by storm. The story goes like this: In 2053 the Earth’s ice sheets have melt and the whole planet has sunk under the water. Only small parts of the land’s surface are spared and one of them is the Minoan Palace of Zakros. A polar bear arrives there looking for food. Artemis, a little girl, runs away from home to find the bear and rescue him. With the help of a bee, the adventure begins!

In this story the bear accuses people for the ecological disaster, the bee is mad at the bears for eating the honey, and Artemis at her parents for not letting her go after the bear. Will our heroes manage to get over their anger and animosity? If we were friends with each other but also with the animals and all of the planet’s living creatures, perhaps the future would be better.