Common Breath is a contemporary music-theatre composition for ten brass instruments, percussion, and narrator, featuring original music by Orestis Papaioannou. At the heart of the work lies the concept of breath as a shared denominator of human experience: life, speech, memory, and collectivity. Through a series of interconnected sections, the performance develops a dialogue between contemporary artistic creation and cultural heritage, incorporating subtle references to the classical repertoire.
The narrator serves as a connective thread, weaving a poetic flow of words that activates music as an act of collective presence. Conceived specifically for archaeological sites, the performance draws upon the natural acoustics and symbolic resonance of the location, offering audiences a ritualistic listening experience. Common Breath highlights the need to redefine the meaning of the “human” through coexistence, mutual presence, and a shared rhythm that binds individuals into a collective whole.
The black comedy “Neighborhood” highlights the alienation that new technologies have brought
into the lives of teenagers and their impact on human communication. Six young people, isolated
on the balconies of an apartment building, coexist without any meaningful contact, communicating
exclusively through the internet while ignoring their immediate surroundings. Their daily lives are
shaped through screens and digital interactions, creating an illusion of connection. When a sudden
network outage disrupts this condition, they are forced to confront the real presence of others,
revealing the limitations of digital communication.
Contrapiento Group presents a performance with original music compositions, songs and contamporary dance, based on the children’s book A Man of steel by the awarded Cypriot author, Nikos Antoniou. Mark, a small boy, has discovered a magical way to travel at night: his school bag becomes a flying vehicle that takes him wherever he wants. One night he visits a planet and meets two strange creatures made of steel, Cen and Epi. The creatures head towards a city, where Cen has to fulfil a mission, that greatly upsets Mark once he learns of it. Though he is made of steel, since he has two legs, two arms and two eyes, Cen believes he is human. But is the appearance what defines a human or is it something else? In this unique space adventure theatrical performance, we will explore what really makes us human: care, mutual assistance, justice.
The production “Antigone: I Was Born to Love” is a contemporary tragedy that bridges ancient myth with living historical and social experience. Its starting point is Sophocles’ Antigone — not as a re-enactment, but as a timeless archetype of defiance in the face of injustice.On stage, Antigone ceases to be a single character and transforms into an enduring presence that resurfaces across different eras and circumstances. Her figure traverses time and is embodied in women who are called upon to choose between silence and action, between safety and responsibility. Each incarnation illuminates a different version of the same conflict: where human dignity clashes with fear, and the inner voice resists every imposed law.The production does not glorify heroism; rather, it brings into focus the moment of choice — the moment where love, memory, and accountability toward the other become acts of resistance. As a contemporary theatrical composition, it functions as an act of remembrance and vigilance, posing a vital question to the audience: when injustice becomes the norm, is silence a choice — or complicity?
Manolis Mitsias invited the acclaimed Greek actress Karyofyllia Karabeti to join him in performing songs that reflect and inspire our collective memory, both in good times and during today’s dystopian era. This is a heartfelt tribute to poets who have contributed their verses to songs, taking us on a musical journey through the history and culture of modern Greece.
Unsurpassable Manolis Mitsias takes the stage alongside Karyofyllia Karabeti, who recites poetry and sings live for the first time. The performance features songs with lyrics by Nikos Gatsos, Odysseas Elytis, George Seferis, Yannis Ritsos, Manos Eleftheriou, and Lefteris Papadopoulos – all of them renowned poets who set the standards for exceptional Greek songs.
Three sisters return to the island of their origin to tackle inheritance issues. Their father has passed away; they no longer have any relatives, and all three now live exclusively in Athens. Ever since they were little girls, they have dreamed of the big city, longing to escape so they can study, fall in love, and enjoy better professional prospects. Returning to their family home brings them face to face with the lives they have chosen, their childhood fantasies, and the people from their early years who have shaped them.
Drawing inspiration from Chekhov’s Three Sisters, this new piece attempts to illuminate the concerns of a young generation living in large urban centers, working hard, searching for love, and ultimately striving to find a “Moscow” in which to exist.
A performance that uses space as a living observer of time’s flow. Three generations of performers symbolize the past, present, and future on both a real and an imaginary time horizon. They interact in a shared space, shaping and changing it, adding or destroying elements. Time is observed through the earth and the surrounding space. Music is added as a fundamental component of the performance to play the role of time and directly and substantially affect the events. The live music converses with the movements of the performers, both moulding and being moulded by their actions. The performance structure is based on philosophical Taoism, introducing an additional central axis, alongside the temporal one, into the stage space, choreography, and dramaturgy.
A group of people, a contemporary “chorus”, attempts to (re)compose a mind-blowing and at the same time ritualistic music-theatre performance about Smyrna, with strong images and narratives questioning fragments of the history of the Asia Minor Catastrophe and borrowing elements from ancient tragedy.
Pieces of history and historical documents are recited in chorus. Chorus, melismatic choral singing, use of phrases from ancient drama choral parts in translation or in the original, messengers’ narratives, laments.
These narratives and comments will be interrupted by real persons’ testimonies that weave the aching, blood-stained human web. Excerpts of testimonies from EXODUS, Koinos Logos, the narratives of Filio Haidemenou and Angela Papazoglou, and of soldiers on the front lines have been selected and pieced together in an original composition.
The cicada (tettix in ancient Greek) is by nature associated with the process of transformation when it turns from a nymph into an adult. In the movement-based music performance Pontic Cantada the contemporary music ensemble TETTTIX (with a triple t) presents its own imaginary version of the forced “transformation” of a society.
After the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Treaty of Lausanne, a part of Pontic Greek refugees settled in Corfu. The mingling of populations, mutually influencing one another, forced the two parties to reconsider their beliefs and habits.
Through drama and satire and in a quasi-vaudevillian mood, TETTTIX and Eugenia Demeglio (choreography/movement) transform the kemençe and the mandolin into a new entity, in a context where otherness evokes reflection and stigmatization and is at the same time refreshing, invigorating and inspiring.
On a stage that is also an archaeological site, five artists from Cephalonia who live and create in 2022, bring to life narratives from the days of 1922, hum melodies, and look for the thread connecting them to their ancestors, who were either born on Cephalonia or Ithaca or ended up there hunted down, orphaned, and frightened. Alongside them a British lighting designer, a Cephaloniot set designer who lives abroad, and a director with roots in Cappadocia.
The performance presents archival material revolving around the reception of 7,000 refugees and the integration of those who, in the end, remained on these two islands.
With no sadness, but with the intent to communicate the atmosphere of that era and collectively redefine the concept of “refugee”. Because refugeeism is not an instant occurrence in world history.