Up to 1.500 theatre performances emerge during one season in Athens. In tiny and even tinier theatres, in appartments and old workshops, in galeries, clubs and abandoned supermarkets, on streets and squares. Never before has there been such an urge for publicity, such a defiant self-reassurance in the face of „crisis“.
How far will that extreme self-exploitation go? And how long is there going to be a – paying – audience? On the other hand: don’t we have to, from time to time, scrutinize the ways by which the artists reach out to their public? The stepping out into the neighbourhood, the squatting of derelict spaces and fallows, the participative moment of encounters might hold many new opportunities.
Not only in Greece.
NOVA MELANCHOLIA
EKTOPLASMATA (ECTOPLASM)
“Ektoplasm” was created in the intimate atmosphere of the director’s flat. The performance is based upon poems of Miltos Sachtouris and delivers snap-shots of rebellion and sensitivity as well as struggle and sorrow. “A farewell at the 1980s through poems that call upon dear dead ones, with songs played on keyboards and cheap b-movie horror scenes” writes director Vassilis Noulas. Reciting the poems with great passion, the excellent performer ensemble comments on them and therewith brings them to life. Performed in Greek with English subtitles.
LOFFT - Das Theater
Saturday, 16th of September 8 p.m.
Tickets here
DOUBLE BILL:
LAMBROS PIGOUNIS
SACRIFICAL MIRROR. AN INTERACTIVE SOUND PERFORMANCE
The composer and sound designer Lambros Pigounis borrows movements used in religious rituals all over the world. In “Sacrificial Mirror” the performer generates sounds and vibrations with his own body and amplifies them with the help of special contact microphones and sensors. Sound, volume, sweat and trance melt into a kind of auditory mirror of social norms. No language barrier.
LOFFT - Das Theater
Tuesday, 19th of September 9 p.m. [DOUBLE BILL]
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GIANNIS KAROUNIS
NATURE
Choreographer, dancer and filmmaker Giannis Karounis links topics like thoughtlessness, destruction of the environment and human exploitation. His unpretentious yet smart performance is not only shown in theaters, but also in galleries and in public spaces. His film “Ruin” is part of the dance film program of the festival as well. No language barrier.
LOFFT - Das Theater
Tuesday, 19th of September [DOUBLE BILL]
Tickets here
IOANNA PORTOLOU + GRIFFÒN DANCE COMPANY
PORN
According to the company, “porn” can be almost anything: boundlessness, beauty, secret, abuse, but also focus, repetition or intensity. This performance is a case study of extreme mutability. Relation is movement, movement is relation - all this in ever-changing transformation. Just as the improvised and live played electronic music. No language barrier.
LOFFT - Das Theater
Wednesday, 20th of September 8 p.m.
Tickets here
ATHENS VIDEO DANCE PROJECT (AVDP)
DANCE FILMS
Widely travelled, award-winning films are among this year’s festival selection, presented by the “Athens Video Dance Project”. Eight imaginative masterpieces of the ascending dance film genre will be shown.
LOFFT - Das Theater
Wednesday, 20th of September 9 p.m.
Free entrance
ATHANASIA KANELLOPOULOU
RUPTURE PERSEFONI + INTO HER GEO#METRIES
For seventeen years, Athanasia Kanellopoulou has worked in Central Europe, with Les Ballets C de la B and the dance theatre of Pina Bausch in Wuppertal, amongst others. In “RUPTURE persefoni“, she follows the path of Persephone, daughter of Zeus, who had been married off to Hades, ruler of the underworld. The second part of the evening, “into her geo#metries“, is a multidisciplinary performance, diving into the world of dreams and arts. No language barrier.
LOFFT - Das Theater
Thursday, 21st of September 8 p.m.
Tickets here
BLITZ THEATRE GROUP
LATE NIGHT
The works of blitz are collectively developed, often without a literary original and without a director. In the first days of working on “Late Night“, there was only the title and the question of what one does at the end of the day. It not only developed into a precise and atmospheric production with extraordinarily present performers, but also into a thought-provoking text on beauty and destruction, a text about Europe as well as about Greece, a text about love. Performed in Greek with German subtitles.
Theater der Jungen Welt
Saturday, 23rd of September 8 p.m.
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