Nikos Engonopoulos has left his mark on the palimpsest of modern Greece’s identity with a work that has stood the test of time. Sharp poetic language, visual insightfulness, glorification of colours, freedom, bravery, and a “madness” for life and love. He passionately and obstinately defended the Surrealist movement, knowledgeably and boldly engaging in dialogue with tradition while always striving for continuous transcendence.
We borrow his verse “It’s not a time for poetry…” for a performance filled with music and poetry at the accessible monument of the Holy Monastery of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary in Torniki, near Deskati in Grevena. Sokratis Sinopoulos stamps his mark on the original music score and adds to the performance with his quartet. The primeval sound of the lyra blends with jazz and modern music.
Renowned actress Reni Pittaki and Kostas Vasardanis perform and converse with the musicians along the banks of the Aliakmonas River, bathed in a magical light against a backdrop of wildflowers, chirping birds, and water reflections.
Uprooting is a traumatic experience from the past that continues to affect us today, influencing entire generations and shaping the identities and stories of both individuals and societies. The musical and audiovisual performance Passages of Memory explores the timeless bond between Hellenism and expatriation. Through a combination of songs, storytelling, and digital audiovisual art, the historical memories and the pain of uprooting are evoked, transforming the songs into living documents of collective memory.
Contradictions is a theatrical production that brings together two powerful texts in a bold dramaturgical synthesis: Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Kostas Varnalis’ The True Apology of Socrates. A contemporary Socrates stands before his accusers, answering with the philosophical clarity of Plato and the sharp, ironic voice of Varnalis. Through this staged dialogue, a timeless clash is brought to life—thought against authority, truth against deception, responsibility against apathy. Language reigns supreme on stage: philosophical, poetic, and provocative, supported by original live music that underscores the emotional and intellectual tension. Bridging two millennia of critical thought, Contradictions invites audiences to reflect anew on questions that still resonate today: What is truth? What place does the thinking individual hold in society? And what is the price of truth in our time?
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.
A theatre performance based on the adaptation of Stella Michailidou’s fairy tale Stories from Gatouhan: We Have the Same Mom published by Kaleidoscope Publishing (2021).
The performance illuminates through the eyes of children, in a very meaningful, tender and at the same time playful way aspects of the refugee issue. There where adult cats see only problems, younger ones see riches and unique gifts. A story that unites yesterday with today, focusing on the issues of refugee reception, the real problems, the existing prejudices, but also on the value and preciousness of the unique Other.
Heroes from fairy tales of the East and the West run through the whole work like a luminous web, bringing everyone together, regardless of national, cultural, racial, religious or any other kind of differences.
A search for the paths of events, images, and ideas, through time: Die Wolke art group presents Ichne (“traces”), a contemporary dance performance that sources its materials from interviews, focusing on the workings of memory and oral communication towards the development of imagery originating from the Asia Minor cultural identity.
Movement, along with musical and sonic compositions, approaches the inherent subjectivity of descriptions, low fidelity, gaps, and negative space that reveals the dimension of time in poetic imagery, thus focusing on the intersubjectivity of narrative refractions.
Using the Asia Minor Catastrophe as a starting point we will work on the provocative and enigmatic story written by Giorgos Chimonas, Doctor Ineotis.
The wandering and the History of the masses, the history of humanity itself, its ending and the inevitable renaissance of something new are the essence of the Asia Minor Catastrophe and are also powerfully present in Chimonas’ text. Chimonas writes a story but its narrative is being constantly interrupted, in the same way that dreams work. And the dreamy element in the archaeological site of Deskati in Grevena is the Tarkovskian setting that perfectly matches with the poetic writing of the text.
The non-realistic speech delivery, the scenery, the music and the singing, are the elements that will compose our performance.
In his tree-cutting fury, Erysichthon did not even respect Demeter’s sacred poplar tree. As a result, the goddess condemned him to suffer from insatiable hunger, which eventually led him to his horrible death: he ate his own flesh. The musical performance with live sculpting The Chainsaws of Erysichthon treats the issue of nature’s exploitation by man. On stage there are two sculptors/loggers and four musicians. The sculptors sculpt poplar tree trunks while the instruments converse with the sound of the woodworking and tune their music to it. Their interaction is infiltrated by an altered version of the tsamiko dance tune “Why don’t you cry, trees and branches?”. The synergy of TETTTIX with the loggers produces eye-opening and unprecedented music that gets transformed from sound pollution and a bad omen into the myths’ dramaturgical vehicle. The tools in the hands of the loggers do not lead to the destruction of nature but to the creation of 3D sculptures through a dialogue with it.
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.