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.
Electra and Orestes, two young people living in the 2025 Greek countryside, share the stage with two characters of the same names from the well-known ancient Greek myth. Although they are millennia apart, the four of them become caught up in the same vortex of revenge and matricide. They cannot traverse time, yet their thoughts and actions intersect in a completely unexpected way. The thread of one story intertwines with that of the other, and both are driven to deviation. The drama’s key factor is space: the Gates of Hades. There, where the world of the living empties into the world of the dead, and the lines between life and death remain unclear and indistinct. In this place where the outlines of the living blur and merge with the shadows, what could lead someone to desperately wish for another person’s death to achieve redemption? And when the act is committed, does redemption truly come?
The performance Sky from Other Lands is based on Sotiris Dimitriou’s book of the same name, a living monument of language with cracks, inscriptions, and unseen podiums. The central narrator, Alexo, is overwhelmed by an irresistible need to share. Her words surge within her like a rushing current that must definitely find a way out: into a precipice, a big river, a sea, or to an audience member. They want to water, carry away, and drown.
In the shadow of the Archaeological Museum of Arta, Alexo breaks vessels that conceal secrets of the past, exchanges coins – both counterfeit and genuine –, plays with figurines like a girl with her dolls, wears expensive jewellery or undresses, and kindles the candlelight on the tombstones of graves where both enemies and loved ones rest – including her own. A ritual of life that becomes a confession of guilt, nostalgia, and rejuvenating disaster, beneath the light of a dancing sun. Alexo’s words – fragmentary and soft, funny or daring, obscene, generous, weird, majestic – weave a tapestry with secret warps: God’s unknown plan.
The musical performance Echoes of Time – From the Art of Petroloukas Halkias to Contemporary Creation brings the musical tradition of Epirus into the present day by blending its deep history and cultural significance with contemporary arrangements, original compositions, and modern dance.
Drawing on the art of the legendary Petroloukas Halkias and the extensive repertoire of Epirus music, the select Epirus ensemble of the Holy Metropolis of Ioannina, in collaboration with internationally acclaimed lutist Vasilis Kostas, who supervises the ensemble’s performance and musical direction, creates a vibrant dialogue with the past.
The orchestra, comprising sixteen young musicians consistently trained in Epirus folk music, creates dynamic conversations and bridges with the contemporary musical landscape. Participating as a prominent guest will be the virtuoso of the Constantinopolitan lyra, Sokratis Sinopoulos. A special groundbreaking feature of the show will be the collaboration with dancers Charitini Koukou and Marilia Haremi, who transform the pieces into a contemporary movement approach, reflecting the stories behind the compositions. The performance also features the great instrumentalists Andreas Pappas (percussion), Panagiotis Aivazidis (qanun), and Panagiotis Georgakopoulos (drums), offering a comprehensive artistic experience.
How important is it for a child to follow their dreams and not those of other people? How much courage does someone need to admit their resemblance to the “enemy”?
It is difficult for someone to discuss about politics with a child. It is hard to present them History and its curses in an objective way. Sometimes though, the infallible mirror of a myth, does not hide these issues – it reveals them, more clearly, in a more “digestible” form than ever before.
The work is inspired by the enchanting Asia Minor fairy tale “Machaira” (Knife). It tells the story of two friends, a prince and a poor child, who were violently separated but then found each other again, through a journey in search of the “Great Idea”.
Three narrators will traverse the multicultural Asia Minor portraying images in three sections.
Before, during and in the wake of the Disaster. An intertextual performance inspired by historical events, Dido Sotiriou’s novel Farewell Anatolia (Matomena Homata) and Geis Milton’s The Lost Paradise-Smyrna 1922, as well as by myths and written accounts. Memories and testimonies of real persons who lived in Asia Minor come to life and transport us to the magical world of Smyrna, there where the East and the West harmonically co-exist. But also in the subsequent tragedy. The tragedy of the Catastrophe and persecution. Melodies and live music, songs, local treats, feelings of joy and pain, they all create the canvas of the history of Asia Minor.
Using imagination as a vehicle of expression and communication, a story is created for the whole family. A peaceful celebration to acquaint ourselves with Izmir and the cultural heritage of Asia Minor.
The work is set in 1950s Greece in a train compartment hosting refugees from various areas of Asia Minor, Pontus and Cappadocia. As is often the case with travelling, passengers start telling stories both about their motherlands before the uprooting and about the adventures of their settlement in Greece.
Through original songs and texts, six stories of people unfold, showcasing their memories from their motherland before the uprooting and their nostalgia for it, their adventurous journey to Greece and the problems of their adaptation and integration into the new environment, but also a series of positive influences, brought about by the refugee influx into the economic and intellectual life of Greece.
The wandering ticket inspector is the one who conveys how natives view the Greeks of the East.
Island of Kos, the journey begins in 1890, in the homeland of the great Greek singer, Marika Papagika.
In 1913 she follows her parents who migrate to Egypt and two years later to the USA, where she settles and lives to the end of her life, in 1943. New York is the starting point of the great career of this special singer, who recorded more than 200 light music, Smyrnaean, folk and rebetiko songs. Her reputation spreads and her songs are loved through her records that reach every corner of the earth.
A music-theatre benchmark performance in honour of the legendary Marika, the first among all other important Greek female singers in the USA, whose life and creative trajectory have acquired the dimensions of a true legend.
This is a performance that combines excerpts from Aeschylus’ Iketides (The Suppliant Women), historical facts, testimonies, traditional sounds but also original texts and songs, in order to shed light on the saga of the relocation of the young women who constituted the vast majority of the refugee population.
Those young widows, single and orphaned women, in their attempt to claim their professional and personal “rehabilitation” in the patriarchal Greece of ’22, are exploited by men and subjected to racism by Greek women who see them as rivals.
They call them ‘pastrikes’ (the “clean ones”) but not in order to praise their love of grooming and cleaning: those times in Greece the only women who often washed themselves – because of their profession – were prostitutes. “Honest” women did not need to wash any “shame” off of them.
Onirodrama theatre company created an intertextual original performance for the whole family titled The Nightmare of Persephone#Chernobyl. In a utopian atemporal setting where everything is possible, where reality merges with fantasy and where the problem becomes so crucial and unmanageable, a different mechanism of self-preservation is set in motion.
The myth of Persephone according to Homer’s hymn to Demetra, Nikos Gatsos’ poetry, true accounts of the Chernobyl tragedy by writer and Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich, Andri Snær Magnason’s The Story of the Blue Planet, and Apostle Paul’s Hymn of Love from his epistle to the Corinthians inspire and help compose the canvas that will depict the problems of energy crisis, climate change and ecological destruction. The participation of children in the show is its most important part. The performance is a protest, a pleading and at the same time an answer to the “powerful ones” who destroy “our home”, the planet Earth.