At the magical archaeological site of Delos, Greek visual artist Katerina Karatzaferi draws inspiration from the Japanese tradition of Komomaki and Greek textile art, while Egyptian composer and musician Ahmed Saleh imagines contemporary Alexandria being sunk under the rising sea surface to meet its Hellenistic ancestor.
The two artists collaborate for the first time on a visual/sound installation and performance based upon different cultural narratives about the threats to the natural environment and its protection. The Japanese and Greek traditions converse and, through the sculpture installation of the first and the personal sound memories of the second, begins a special dialogue with archaeology, historical memory, nature and myth, as captured at the historical and symbolic site of Delos.
A special two-day event by Kairos Politismou on the island of Tinos, including a visual arts exhibition in the Holy Monastery of the Sacred Heart at Exomvourgo and experiential workshops for children in the Tinos Book Workshop at the Chora of Tinos. The exhibition titled The Nightmare of Persephone – named after Nikos Gatsos and Manos Hadjidakis’ song of the same title – features 22 modern Greek visual artists (many of whom have a close relationship with the island) and their works made especially for it. Sculpture and photography installations as well as performance art events will also be presented in the Monastery’s courtyard.
The experiential workshops titled How are children’s books made and what are the consequences for our environment? explore book as an object. A creative venture through which children will be called upon to answer questions such as: “Have we realised that for every book printed, a tree has been cut down?”
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.
The musical performance Nephelococcygiae and Chirping by Michalis and Pantelis Kalogerakis and Tonia Tzirita Zacharatou explores the relationship between humans and birds. In this stage production, poetic language that has been set to music intertwines with fragments of scientific facts, ornithological findings, and stories about birds.
Original musical compositions inspired by poems penned by Miltos Sachtouris, Napoleon Lapathiotis, Jacques Prévert and others, are presented live by a group of musicians and two performers, as they struggle to investigate the possibility of coexistence between humans and birds in a present that is marked by continuous conflicts. What does survive today from the utopian city of Aristophanes’ Nephelococcygia? What stories are hidden behind seabirds flying to the land in search of food, migratory birds colliding with airplanes, or pigeons in city centers? What songs lie within their flying lives?