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.
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.
“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.
A whale washes up on a city beach and starts decomposing. The locals are indifferent, yet two of them, Pierre and Odile, decide to watch this death up close. Their lonely walk along a vast sandy coast climaxing with their encounter with the dead animal is a journey of realisation and search for man’s responsibility towards animals and nature.
In the production The Whale theatre pairs up with the visual setting and Nalyssa Green’s ambient music to bring Paul Gadenne’s most representative work and one of the first books to have touched upon the issue of ecology onto the stage. As the writer himself notes: “It is true that we are very little. Very weak. However, no matter how little and helpless we might be, we can do this. Even the littlest people can do this – a little effort with ourselves, every one of us.”
Studies have shown that cycling, as opposed to travelling by car, saves 150 grams of CO2/km and is, unquestionably, one of humanity’s greatest hopes for a future of zero carbon emissions. With this in mind, Tak Tak Do theatre company presents an original musical fairy tale with an adventurous plot for children, inspired by the only bicycle maker in Greece, Giorgos Vogiatzis.
In the production A Cyclist Changes the World, Diagoras uses a bicycle for his daily transportation. One day, he comes across the Mayor and the two of them bet that if Diagoras tours Europe on bicycle, the Mayor will build cycle paths! And this is how a journey full of adventures and unpredictable encounters begins! A musical fairy tale that unfolds as an enchanting tour across the characteristics and traditions of European cultures and at the same time as a reminder of the benefits of green commuting.
A performance drawing information from scientific and anthropological research and transforming it into a subversive visual, choreographic and musical concept. Bodies Floating Into the Land focuses on the protection of biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea and the effects of climate change on human and non-human organisms. Starting with invasive foreign species, such as lionfish, toadfish, purple jellyfish etc., which are transported through ballast tanks along with sea water used to maintain the ship’s stability, we ponder upon the vulnerability of all of the “sea creatures”. The work is informed by the place where it is held – here, the fierce god of the sea turns into a positive figure as a miracle doctor. The symbolic character of the cure conveys messages of hope for the future of the planet and consolation against ecological grief.
Sokratis Sinopoulos and Vasilis Kostas, two highly regarded Greek musicians with international acclaim, collaborate to create a dynamic and original musical performance called Swirling in the Aegean. The performance explores the potential of combining two musical instruments that bear a historical significance in Greek music, the lyre and the lute. Inspired by Mediterranean traditions and using original compositions and interactive improvisations, they create modern musical landscapes in real time, offering a unique listening experience.
The duo is accompanied by impressive live drawing by Soloύp, who captures and complements the stories and places that inspired the musical compositions. With his sketches he creates and destroys a story of images in real time, in front of the eyes of the audience, portraying it simultaneously with the music and in contrast to it.
The final result captures the fertile clash of the new with the old, as well as the creative contrast, interaction, and eventually blend of different musical traditions and styles into a harmonized ensemble.
Odysseus, this mythical yet modern and complex figure, is above all, the symbol of enduring resilience. The one who constantly engages in conflicts, both internal and external, and consistently faces challenges that surpass their abilities.
In Odysseus’ Tarot we revisit Odyssey through the Marseille Tarot Cards. These cards explore the human condition, much like Myths, Poetry, and Music: by delving into the innermost layers of the self, the aspects shielded from time, place, logic, and certainties. Every “picking” of a Tarot Card gives the heroes of the Odyssey ambiguous “oracles”, hovering between morality and desire, logic and emotion. A cross-temporal dialogue between two cultures opens. On the one hand there is the Renaissance and Humanism with the Tarot Cards, and on the other, ancient Greek thought with the Odyssey – in their most playful, poetic, and archetypal form.
*The performance will open with the Experimental Stage of Milos. It will be based on an Odyssey-inspired original libretto by Pavlina Pamboudi, taught by Kalliroi Myriagou.
The artistic conflict among Romantic composers, with its significant social implications, is brought to the foreground through a unique piano recital by George-Emmanuel Lazaridis accompanied by a live performance featuring original movement by two dancers onstage: Theano Xydia and Natalia Bika.
The performance The War of the Romantics will take the audience on a journey across the mid-19th century, focusing on the clash between the aesthetics of Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt.
In this context, the programme will include two iconic pieces from the piano repertoire: Brahms’ Four Ballades and Liszt’s Sonata in B minor – two compositions that reflect two entirely different and possibly conflicting musical styles that were pivotal in shaping the future of music. The Bazeos tower, a 17th-century historical monument at the center of Naxos, will serve as the backdrop for a dialogue between music and body that will lead to their harmonious union.
The exhibition +THLIPSIS explores the concept of inner conflict, as it is manifested in a wide array of contrasts, such as the “principle of pleasure” versus the “principle of reality”, theory versus action, faith versus the instinct governing the human body, the causality of the natural environment versus the inclination to discover and be curious, discipline versus negation, as well as the natural versus the metaphysical.
Eight artists interact with the conceptually, emotionally, religiously, and socially charged site of the Convent of Ursulines. It is a complex developed in the 19th century, a pioneering project for Greek standards, which served as a social, intellectual, and educational centre in Tinos for decades. Its desolation sparks the challenge to restore it both locally and nationally, not only to reveal its local history, but also to highlight its visceral connection to the major cultural hubs of the time and, by extension, to the European cultural scene.