The new work by Mariela Nestora / YELP danceco. explores the forms adorning red-figure and black-figure vases of ancient Greek pottery. It brings these forms to life, not as mere representations of the past but as a potential arena for questioning and creating narratives. The choreography – as a mechanism of appropriation, repetition, and reformulation – stirs and inscribes memories, rendering time fluid and porous. This excavation of movement takes place in the here and now in ongoing interaction with live music. Is movement form or energy, action or context, embodiment or transformation, positive or negative space, sensation or thought, source or echo, perception or transmission, reproduction or comment? In the dance performance Appropriations: Excavation of Movement, the past, present, and future are not distinct entities, but interrelated manifestations of the same experience. What do we choose to place in the background and what in the foreground of our attention?
The first Governor of the Greek state returns to Nafplio today; he passes by St. Spyridon’s Church and proceeds to Palamidi, holding a letter in his hands. Three actors and a team of musicians create a modular show – a “music theatre Babylonia” – transporting us to the turbulent era of Kapodistrias. The performance revolves around texts based on original documents and dialogues from that time (Historical Memories by Nikolaos Dragoumis, Apologa about Kapodistrias by Georgios Tertsetis, Military Memoirs by Nikolaos Kasomoulis, Historical Anthology by Giannis Vlachogiannis, History of the Greek Revolution by Thomas Gordon, and more), as well as other original texts.
A music theatre piece that explores the core of human existence. The custom of “tama” (vow, offering), deeply rooted in Greek tradition, unfolds as an enduring act that unites the Divine with the human, and the past with the present. The performance delves into the lives of ordinary people from different generations who, through trials, pain, and miracles, make a promise to a supreme force as an ultimate call for help.
Through storytelling, live music, and movement, the performance Vow explores the human need, illuminating the fine line between faith, superstition, and sacrifice. The performance’s text is composed of materials based on true accounts of people, ranging from the past to the present day. Three actors reenact the journey from trial to promise, sacrifice, and anticipation of the miracle on stage. The performance combines elements of traditional art with modern directorial methods, where music, speech, and movement function as allegorical tools.
Two performers present a peculiar concert manifesto; a dialogue between two women fighting to keep a man by “screaming” against the hypocrisy of the male gender while opposing the values of marriage, motherhood, and the very concept of what it means to be a woman. This concert manifesto aims to explore the deeper motives behind a murder and the upheaval of an entire society surrounding gender issues, viewed through the lens of ancient myth.
The two Medeas converse without looking at each other, raising questions that concern women in art from ancient to contemporary times: What leads a Medea to kill her children? How can a serious crime be justified? What led to committing it in the first place? How can that be conveyed on stage through the tragic element of ancient drama, and how does ancient drama ultimately create a universal language to express contemporary issues? The performance unites the voices of many different versions of Medea written worldwide, from Euripides’ time to the present day, with music playing a primordial role in the composition of the vocal score.
The Mododentro Theatre Group presents an original and interactive music theatre performance based on Mania Douka’s book The Prince’s Crown and Other Stories (Kastaniotis Publishing, illustrated by Daniela Stamatiadi). An ordinary school trip to a museum transforms into an adventure for two children, Mania and Daniel, when, all of a sudden, a mysterious woman named Mrs Clo appears in front of them. In her hands, she holds an old, small flywheel that can awaken art objects with just one turn. As the flywheel turns for the first time, a sword trembles, ready to recount battles and triumphs. A crown is illuminated by an invisible light, revealing the lost glory of a forgotten kingdom. A golden bead whispers secret vows, and a vessel filled with warriors comes to life, ready for new adventures. A fairy-tale-like wandering unfolds across the prehistoric civilizations of Greece and a journey through the museum’s magical world, where art objects come out of their display cases, breathe, and move, becoming the heroes of an unpredictable story!
In the enduring dance of existence, the concepts of Beginning, Space, and Time intertwine, creating a grid that connects life to death. LOGOS 132 revolves around the performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15, Op. 132, a composition that explores mortality and the human condition. At the same time, John Cage’s piece Atlas Eclipticalis will illuminate the concepts of non-space and the atemporal, through a sound conversation between music and sculptures, inviting visitors to reflect on their relationship with time.
At the heart of the installation is a series of sculptures specifically created for this performance by Cypriot visual artist Stella N. Christou. These sculptures will transmit natural microsounds, recorded by members of the Ergon Ensemble and inspired by modern techniques employed by pioneering composers, which will simulate the sensation of being in an anechoic chamber and create a sonic atmosphere complemented by the recitation of poems from T. S. Eliot’s collection, Four Quartets.
Common Tale is a performance based on real-life testimonies from women sharing their experiences across various periods of 20th-century Greek history, including the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the Interwar Period, World War II, and the Civil War.
These stories illuminate war’s destructive consequences on people, regardless of time. They reflect the voices of ordinary people, capturing a shared reality that bridges the past with the present while reminding us of the need for a collective memory. Through the equal participation of deaf and hearing actors, a profound message about shared human experiences is conveyed. Using a bilingual storytelling process that combines vocal performance and Greek Sign Language, as well as physical theatre, and music-motor expression, diverse expressive forms are brought to the foreground. The stage action unfolds through interpretive music and motor references, as well as percussion instruments played by all performers, both deaf and hearing, in collaboration with an onstage musician, creating an enhanced and uniquely riveting theatrical experience.
Ammophila Vol.3: There Was Land Here Before is an exhibition that renegotiates the way in which we perceive and experience places and the dominant narratives projected onto them.
We are concerned with places, which we regard as our subsoil, rituals of coming together and coexisting, and stories that have shaped these relationships. The exhibition is inviting us to give new interpretations and stories to places that can be real or made up through our collective phantasies: phantasies of a non-existent land, a land that is different, a land that is differently inhabited.
A land that can shake us, a land in decomposition, a land in bloom, a land that trembles, a limitless land.
Galatia Grigoriadou-Soureli’s awarded novel The Great Farewell is presented in its first staging for children aged 10 years and over and teenagers.
The 4PLAY theatre company tells the adventure of the novel’s heroes, who take part in the Asia Minor Expedition in the beginning of their adult life, through a theatre performance that combines contemporary dance techniques with contact improvisation and an original music score.
A journey from Athens to Smyrna, from youth to maturity, and from peace and love to war and loss. A story binding the old world today with today’s world, using Ionia as a connective link. A story of coming of age and humaneness.
In Andreas Flourakis’ new work today’s young people are linked to the Smyrna Catastrophe of 1922 through the love for animals, love, gastronomy and family memories. Even the animations bring to the surface aspects of History that have gone unnoticed, like the rescue of Greeks by the Japanese ship Tokei Maru.
While the ships of allies were watching Smyrna being destroyed and Greeks being drowned off the coast of Ionia from a distance, the captain of Tokei Maru threw its cargo into the sea to make room for as many people as possible, in order to transfer them safe and sound to the port of Piraeus.
In Little Asia Tokei Maru’s strange journey is turned into a story of mystery and Japanese beauty.