The theatre performance The Glass Mountains and the Ivory Plains brings to life a special fairy tale from the Cyclades through modern theatrical methods and a profound emotional connection to tradition, featuring storytelling, music, live painting, and physical theatre.
A young shepherd and an August fairy fall in love and create a family in the Overworld. When she and their child disappear, the shepherd sets out on a painful journey to find them. Guided by the four winds, he travels through a symbolic landscape of “glass mountains” and “ivory camps”, which stand for a process of maturation and hope.
The Mycenaean Acropolis of Agios Andreas on Sifnos turns into a vibrant fairy tale, inviting children, teenagers, and adults to a multi-sensory experience that connects different generations and brings out the power of folk storytelling. Accompanying activities enhance this experience: an experiential approach, the creation and performance of traditional music by a local instrumentalist, the reading and telling of local fairy tales by members of a local amateur group, and the visual art workshop “Zografigisi,” which is inspired by the practice of live painting used during the performance.
Set in the heart of one of the Mediterranean’s most significant archaeological sites, the Cape of Santorini, the performance Sliding Slalom/Stroggyli is a site-specific event inspired by Nitsa Tzortzoglou’s novel When the Earth is Enraged.
Four actors guide the audience through a “slalom” that explores four eras: the prehistoric Stroggyli, Thera in 1978, the seven years of excavations from 1967 to 1974, and modern Santorini. The narrative unfolds at the archaeological site, incorporating insights from the traces left by people and natural disasters.
Spectators are not merely observers. They move through the space, connect to the story, follow the traces of a mysterious necklace, and participate in a scenic journey, where the past is not viewed as a museum element but as a vibrant and moving experience, open to reinterpretation. This journey culminates in an open contest of creative writing, where audience members become “storytellers,” and their most exceptional stories will be published in a collective volume, leaving a new mark on the grand narrative of this remarkable place.
The performance Justice is inspired by the dialogue between the Melians and Athenians, as described by Thucydides. Contemporary citizens-audience members will be called upon to make a decision regarding the future of their country in a simulation of a potential war threat.
Melos faces the threat of military invasion. Representatives of the invaders come to discuss the possibility of a bloodless surrender. They will talk about the justice of the powerful, which is enforced as long as their power lasts. Spectators and performers will be asked to decide and vote, all while recalling similar moments and experiences.
In a time filled with idols – created by humans for superhumans – the dance solo Hero Unplugged presents an ordinary individual who wants to follow a heroic path and reach the top. His journey seems predictable, until – willingly or unwillingly – he becomes “unplugged” and disconnected.
This piece is a choreographic attempt inspired by the allure of Plato’s Cave and its contemporary interpretations, drawing parallels between the shadows in the cave and the dubious modern demands that shape our lives. At the center of the story is a young boy who, through his physical imagination and the choreographer’s eyes, conveys the importance of disconnecting and heroism—concepts that continue to seek their place in both the present and the not-so-distant future.
The Tinos Virtual Museum (TVM), as part of the Ministry of Culture’s programme “All of Greece, One Culture 2025”, presents a multifaceted initiative dedicated to the weaving art of Tinos and its revival in the present day. Through a programme of exhibitions, talks, screenings, artistic and educational activities, weaving is approached as a living cultural practice and a means of creative expression, viewed through a historical lens and recontextualised in contemporary terms.
The events will take place at emblematic landmarks of the island — the Ursuline School in Loutra, the Zarifeios School of Weaving and Handicrafts in Chora, the historic Weaving Workshop in Pyrgos village — as well as at the TVM space in Chora. The programme includes visual art exhibitions, children’s workshops, presentations by distinguished historians and folklorists, and screenings of research-based videos curated by the TVM.
Before Now After is an interdisciplinary project bringing together contemporary dance, traditional live music, oral history, documentary film and photography.
Through a contemporary journey on the island of Leros, the project creates movement while focusing on the meeting with ‘the other’ body (that of the local population, the co-creator, the place, the object) and a dialogue across the collective past, present and future.
The project explores the excavation of the past as an opportunity to listen through the body and to meet with opinions and events of another era. A chance to converse through art with the local community, to set in motion different ways of relating to our history and exploring the collective undertaking of shaping our future.
IN PRESENTIA deals with the Asia Minor Catastrophe through the notion of mourning and the encounter with the sea. The work highlights the complexity of the trauma’s longevity, combining light, the sea’s movement, and sound. A visual and sound installation – it functions as a score for the performance.
A silent ‘in-memoriam’ tribute to all refugees who experienced the trauma of displacement, who lost their lives in this very sea or moved on to a new life. We attempt a dialogue inside the silence of loss, recollecting memories from our past, like invaluable flashes of insight that shed light to the darkness of mourning.
We bring the dead to life within our memory, with tenderness towards what remains in presence, as a part of our lives, invaluable.
On the occasion of the centenary of the Asian Minor Catastrophe, we commemorate the uprooting of innocent civilians through a project that aims at making children from Kos historically aware about the events that occurred during the Asia Minor Catastrophe.
The children will participate in a two-week seminar (29/8/22 – 9/9/22), where they will construct “hero”-puppets depicting refugees from 1922 and onwards, while also learning how to animate them. Through theatrical improvisations, children will express the pain, violence, and cruel treatment experienced by immigrants. The workshops will come complete with a performance that will be held at the Roman Conservatory in Kos (10 and 11/9/22).
The purpose of these performances is to raise awareness and invite people to reflect on peace and show solidarity towards refugees of wars of the past and of the present.
A work that attempts to explore the question of collective memory, the way History stands not only on the experience of the past, but also of the present. In a historical path, that it is unclear whether it is linear or circular, bodies progressively learn how to handle the fragility of coming together and the search for new land.
Concepts such as uprooting, alienation, violent expatriation, rupture of the sense of “belonging” and identity, constantly recur and alternate with each other.
A thread from yesterday to today, where collective memory meets the personal, lived history, the locus of the body and its claims. Perhaps one should undergo many small, successive deaths, wander beyond the boundaries and the dividing lines that exist mostly inside them, to manage to seek a redemptive utopia, an “elsewhere”, a new place.
“If you can’t flourish in a certain place, start thinking that maybe it’s the environment’s fault, not yours…” Stereo Nero Dance Co. follows the life of the inhabitants of Mastichochoria in Chios and analyzes their connection with the life cycle of the “weeping tree” (mastic tree). Through poetic imagery and motion motifs, the company observes the unique characteristics of the local micro-climate and explores the formation of a respective culture. Focusing on the constantly changing weather, The Teardrop raises questions about the vulnerability of the symbiosis of the human with the non-human, and about the loss of the inscribed collective experience. Studying the present condition, through accounts, archival material and cultural references to Chios, and through the prism of the ongoing climate change, the performers create a community with new characteristics that is coming from the future. The familiar interweaves with the unfamiliar, as man tries to find his place in the emerging environments.