Apotypoma negotiates the conceptual dimensions of being uprooted, accepted, and integrated, and by extension of the respect for diversity. How would our life be, if we accepted the experiences of the persons living next to us? Where is our fear of the Other, the Foreigner, based?
The fear of that which is different and unknown is the catalyst in a psychological process based on the principle of similarity. The ones who are like us belong to the same group, therefore they are harmless.
But it is this moment of danger, these meetings, that build one’s personality, there where one overcomes their fear, separate themselves from the group, and explore life through their senses. It is from these meetings that the authentic self emerges.
With small statements, we make a map of our soul. A list of memories, a list of the past. A collection of materials and images in a seemingly random order. A collage, an assembly of sentences that all begin with the phrase: I remember…
NOITI GRAMMI theatre group, with the promenade performance I Remember, proposes a dialogue between the Performing Arts and applied history, historical walks, the concept of a cultural promenade in the historical sites, and an experiential way of understanding the memory of every refugee in a world of turbulence and upheaval.
Two performers/guides attempt a tangible return to the past. They will lead a group of travellers on the routes of ancient topography, with the sound of voices being the supporter of collective memory. This tour will create sporadic and fleeting episodes of unexpected memories, in the form of a pre-recorded soundscape, which will be reproduced through the use of headphones.
Fotis Kontoglou’s book is a collection of stories published in 1962 and a nostalgic reference to the backdrop of the authors’ childhood, in early-20th-century Aivali, a small city hidden among the straits and coasts of the East.
After a careful consideration of these texts, we selected those parts that engage in a meaningful conversation with the mass flights of populations of the previous century and at the same time with the refugee and migrant crisis of today. We explore Kontoglou’s language and the path towards a deeper understanding and a more active participation in the “strange currents” created among people.
Aivali, My Homeland is a performance created by four performers who, through the stories of various protagonists of a wonderful collection of short stories, reveal these characters by placing them in a common time and place, while composing a strange, common story.
A beautiful aristocratic woman named Smyrna receives in her poor now home, somewhere in Kokkinia or Nea Ionia of the 1930s, six wandering musicians. Together they dig up and reshape precious moments from her turbulent life…
The Alcedo folk band, through the eyes and memories of a woman who’s also a city, Smyrna, compose a new and fresh musical performance and present their first Suite based on themes from the works of great Smyrnaean composers (Kalomiris, Konstantinidis and others) and other popular songwriters (Tountas, Peristeris, Papazoglou, Dragatsis-Ogdontakis and more).
The selection of songs by the above-mentioned songwriters as well as the original traditional songs from Smyrna featured in the performance are arranged by the Alcedo Folk Band.
A musical documentary – a farewell ceremony of people leaving their homelands to unknown destinations.
Kythera is a special place, whose modern history has been defined by migration and refugee flights. The performance is a compilation of stories, songs, photographs and other material from the island’s local population. It was on this material that the musical documentary – a “farewell” ceremony was based.
Kythera – Australia is a dirge-like original musical work centered around the human voice that offers the redemptive recollection of the relationship of people with their land, and the separation from it. A belated ceremony of relief and memory. A big timeworn Goodbye.
Internationally acclaimed performer Erini presents an original music-theatre performance inspired by Ilias Venezis’ emblematic literary work, The Land of Aeolia.
Actor Ektoras Gasparatos in the role of young Petros, performs excerpts from the book, conveying images and situations of that era. Erini, accompanied by a classical string quartet with the participation of the permanent Concertmaster of the Thessaloniki State Orchestra, Simos Papanas, enrich the novel with much-loved melodies from Asia Minor, arranged by Grammy Award Nominee Gonzalo Grau.
The performance conveys the happy life of the Greeks of Asia Minor before the Catastrophe, but also the tragedy of the uprooting that still lives in the hearts of contemporary Greeks.
Elli Papadimitriou’s Anatoli (East) is a theatrical composition in poetic format that tells the story of the Asia Minor Expedition and Catastrophe of 1918-1922: victories and disasters, causes and consequences, with man and his passions always on the spotlight. Death and uprooting, lust for life and the struggle, mostly of women, to settle down in their new homeland, the pain that goes hand in hand with the faith in life.
The refugees who imbued Greece with their culture.
Elli Papadimitirou, known for her work Koinos Logos, which was first performed at the Neos Kosmos Theatre in 1997, had worked for many decades on Anatoli that is now presented for the first time, in celebration of the author who identified her life and oeuvre with the fate of Asia Minor.
Two young men between two worlds, as another Pentheus and Dionysus. Using ancient texts and other documents, they will try to find the roots, to remember, to recall. Technology, progress, growth. What do ancient people call Need? Why are the four seasons of the year getting extinct? What is humanism? Is man the centre of our world? Is there an ecological conscience? Are the great civilizations disappearing?
A performance, with the Hill family at its core, in search of euphoria through co-existence. In this painful journey towards memory, they will be assisted by four musicians, composers, performers, and the actress and director of the performance Sofia Hill. Each one of them will compose their own original music, will set choral parts from ancient tragedies and other texts to music, and will perform pieces of classical and traditional music. The road against oblivion is painful and the catharsis inevitable. The epilogue, however, is a hymn to life.
An unexpected musical conversation, Alexandros Drakos Ktistakis’ new music work Selva Oscura, attempts to musically capture the forces that make forests an inextricable structural element of our survival. Written for a chamber orchestra, the work is divided into instrumental parts, improvisation, and parts with set paralogés (narrative folk ballads) performed by Elli Paspala with an original text by Alexandra K*.
The fragile rhythmic and melodic balance among the members of the orchestra, where each musician focuses both on their individual duty and on the orchestra’s goal as a group, reminds us of the balance and organisation of a precious ecosystem. At the same time the work musically captures destruction and rebirth. Its rhythmic contrasts outline the alternations of the life cycle and the destruction of forests. The realisat destruction, the despair of “why” and the hope for rebirth are all aspects that emerge through its musical structure. “After a fire, forests are burnt but not dead”.
An open air sound installation by Dimitris Georgakopoulos and Coti K., a sculpture that serves as an Aeolic harp. The work’s title has been inspired by the myth of Icarus. The two elements of the myth that gave rise to the work’s concept are arrogance and fall.
The installation consists of two rectangular six-metre-long and three-metre-high surfaces, made of one hundred three-metre-long wooden boards arranged horizontally and parallelly, a short distance apart from each other. These surfaces converge to each other, leaving only a narrow passing between them. The air entering them gets compressed and comes out forcefully through a row of strings about two metres long, producing an eerie yet enchanting sound.
The work deliberately chooses not to use modern technology and to be based on its relationship with nature, raising the question about the extent to which man can create works without harming the environment.