Stumbles is a contemporary dance performance that explores the notion of stumbling as a physical, emotional, and historical process that reveals our fragility and vulnerability. Through movement and sound, two dancers and two musicians create a world, in which the loss of balance and the ongoing effort to regain it forms the central theme. Circular movements, spiral pathways, and weight shifts reflect the cyclical nature of time: the body remembers, the past returns, and the stage transforms into a space where today becomes tomorrow and yesterday. The performance encourages us to remain standing in a world that is constantly changing. It serves as a reminder that balance is not a solitary achievement but the result of solidarity and interaction with others. It is a journey from the little stumbles of movement to the great, existential falters that shape our memory, our identity, and our collective history.
The music theatre performance Uncrafted Song: Alexandros Papadiamantis Among Us aims to highlight the timelessness of Papadiamantis’ work through a combination of both the phlegmatic and scholarly qualities of his language, showcasing its lasting relevance across different generations of Greeks—past, present, and future. The performance features orchestral and set poems by Alexandros Papadiamantis, Ilias Katsoulis, and Thomas Korovinis, texts by Alexandros Papadiamantis and Andreas Embiricos, as well as excerpts from Thomas Korovinis’ novel To angelokrousma –The last night of Mr Alexandros, accompanied by original musical compositions by Andreas Katsigiannis.
The musical performance Paroles: How Yesterday’s Songs Converse with Today by the music theatre ensemble Kata-Foni explores the institutional and social censorship of songs from 1930 to 1980. A modern musical ensemble meets a troupe “from the old days.” They discuss censorship, freedom of expression, and political correctness in songs.
The repertoire revolves around questions inspired by rebetiko songs, such as: What is a refugee girl thinking as she chews cinnamon blossoms? Why is there a black Ford waiting for Alexandra and Evlabia? How did malamatenia logia (“golden words”) sound during a night without a moon? Why will I close my eyes? How do operettas and rebetiko songs flirt with sexism, patriarchy, and surrealism? Lyrics, images, and sounds intertwine with live music and narration, filled with awkward silences and big talk (paroles). When rebetiko music composers Haskil, Vamvakaris, and Tsitsanis said “stop the big talk (paroles), I’ve made myself clear to you,” did they wonder if this big talk would ever be censored, altered, or remain intact, despite everything?
* Paroles: a word of Latin origin that is a synonym for “big talk” and “excessive talk.”
Following the successful performance of The Birthday by Georges Sari at the National Theatre of Greece, the group Elephas tiliensis (Dimitris Agartzidis and Despoina Anastasoglou) presents a new music production for children and grown-ups titled True Story or A Journey to the Island of the Moon. The performance is based on Lucian’s work, True Story, which is globally acknowledged as the first science fiction novel ever written.
Following the trend of his contemporary writers who crafted stories filled with incredible adventures to far-away and unexplored lands, Lucian describes the imaginary journey of a young man and his ship’s crew to the unknown. It features a fascinating voyage to the Moon, an interstellar war with immense extraterrestrial monsters, a giant sea creature that swallows the heroes’ ship, pirates and sea monsters, a trip to the land of the Makari and the Accursed, and the discovery of an unknown continent – all part of an incredible adventure. A human journey to the stars, the future, and the unfathomable, uncharted universe, even to this day. Truth or lies? Truth! As long as we can believe in fairy tales together.
The Oneirodrama group, widely known for its polished, original, and interactive performances and experiential workshops, has created a conceptual performance for the whole family, titled PANDΩRA_25//AI. Inspired by ancient Greek mythology, this production explores the enduring impact of myths on art and contemporary society. Through an original theatrical composition, the myths of Prometheus, Epimetheus, Pandora, the Minotaur, Icarus, and Phaethon acquire new conceptual meaning while raising questions about the evolution of humanity, science, knowledge, technology, hubris, and individual responsibility. Centred around the character of Pandora – the first hybrid woman sent by the gods into the world – these myths enter the realm of Artificial Intelligence, standing alongside her or against her while exploring a new reality, a new perspective on technological advancement. How are children, as the citizens of tomorrow, positioned within this context, and how do adults ensure that this happens? Is Pandora a guilty woman, a destroyer, or someone who, through her sexual dynamics, becomes a synonym for evolution?
* The Oneirodrama group will launch parallel activities featuring experiential workshops for children and adults from the surrounding area starting on 10 July 2025.
The work Autumn Youth is an original theatre performance for teenagers, inspired by the youthful memories of people who grew up in Trikala and still live there today as members of the elderly community. It is the result of a broader artistic venture that combines oral storytelling, theatrical creation, and intergenerational encounters.
The group visited homes, coffee shops, and Open Care Centres for the Elderly in Trikala, conversing and recording stories, myths, and experiences of older residents about their teenage years (how they had fun, which places they frequented, which songs they loved, how they fell in love, etc).
Following the completion of the performances on 18 July 2025, an intergenerational workshop will take place where teenagers and elderly individuals will exchange stories, questions, and experiences, exploring concerns about the present and the past while revealing aspects of the local cultural heritage. Through this artistic activity, the past of Trikala returns to the present, aiming to create a shared space for connection, understanding, and creativity among different generations.
A music and dance performance in collaboration with the Athos Danellis Shadow Puppet Theatre and Kyriakos Gouventas’ musical company, which will attempt to showcase the musical and dance tradition of Asia Minor through a journey across the time before its destruction, the subsequent uprooting of its inhabitants, and the transformation of their tradition in the new setting of Greece of the time.
Asia Minor has always been a crossroads of nations and cultures, a melting pot of musical traditions of the West and the East.
The folk songs and tunes still surviving to a great extent to this day are known to be an age-old legacy coming to us from a region that is at once so close, yet so far from us: Asia Minor.
After the Smyrna Catastrophe, around 12.000 refugees from Ionia, Thrace and Pontus arrived at the city of Volos. In 1923 the creation of a refugee settlement began, which was later called Nea Ionia (New Ionia) and evolved into a small community. Most of the refugees were working in tobacco factories, while they soon began establishing football clubs. One of them was Niki Sports Club, whose story begins in 1924.
Part a: Dressing-Room
In the in-between space of the team’s dressing-room, we follow the journey of the refugees and their arrival at Volos, their integration into the society and the creation of Niki Sports Club.
Through the use of complicated technological media, multiple sound sources, contemporary electronic music inspired by traditional Smyrna songs, speech and movement, we follow the journey through the sea until the first couple of years in the new land.
Part b: The Match
In the football field now, the struggle for survival, the competition with the native people, the promotion to the premier league and the integration into the new environment, is depicted through a choreographed football match along with usage of multiple cameras and site-specific projections as the court fills with fans, that is, the descendants that interact with the stage action.
On the occasion of the centenary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, this concert will be based on two emblematic works of Apostolos Kaldaras released in 1972-73, “Byzantine Vesper” and “Asia Minor”.
Apart from Apostolos Kaldaras’ songs, the concert will also feature covers of emblematic songs from the countries of origins of present-day refugees. The set surrounding the orchestra consists of five large paintings by Kostas Kaldaras inspired by the 2015 refugee crisis, while it will also include screenings of historical documentary material and photographs having as their theme refugees over time – a selection made in collaboration with the Photographers of Trikala Team.
Andreas Karakottas and Ioanna Giannopoulou sing accompanied by a seven-member orchestra. Arrangements are by Sakis Kontonikolas.
The performance is set against the backdrop of the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Choristers, as passengers of a boat sailing in the Eastern Aegean Sea and heading to the Greek coasts, narrate – each one in their own musical language – memories of their past and homelands.
Rich and poor, old and young, daughters and mothers, some from Constantinople and Smyrna, others from Cappadocia, Pontus and the coast, one by one they all share known and unknown aspects of the everyday life they’re leaving behind.
In an abstractly natural space and using bodies and voices as a vehicle, the boat turns into an “arc” saving diverse musical references associated with a powerful common experience: the painful migration, the uprooting, the journey in search of a better life. The anticipation for the new land, the new motherland, a second chance at life.