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Musical July Festival

Events


Organizer: Greek festival


Start Date: 30/06/2017

End Date: 05/08/2017



Musical July Festival

LITTLE THEATRE OF ANCIENT EPIDAURUS

[30 June - 1 July] Medea, by Euripides

DIMITRIS KARANTZAS

An attempt to retrieve and illuminate the Medea conundrum. Three male performers will question, re-examine, and attempt to provide answers to the legend of Medea from a male perspective. In which parts of the story does Medea feign her emotions? In which parts of the story does she argue convincingly? In which parts of the story does she come off as perfectly reasonable? Where does she go wrong? Are there any grounds on which these three men can justify and even acquit Medea? This production anatomizes Euripides’ tragedy in terms of rhythm and argumentation. A “whispering” performance of live music that will engage with Medea’s “symptom.”

Translation: Minos Volanakis Direction: Dimitris Karantzas

Dramaturgy: Dimitris Karantzas, Theodora Kapralou

Music: Henri Kergomard Set design: Ellie Papageorgakopoulou

Costume design: Ioanna Tsami Lighting design: Alekos Anastasiou

Movement: Christos Papadopoulos

Cast: Giorgos Gallos (Medea, Nurse), Christos Loulis (Jason, Creon, Tutor, Aegeus, Messenger), Michalis Sarantis (Chorus).

[7-8 July] The Arrival, Based on the section The Killing of the Suitors from Homer’s Odyssey

IO VOULGARAKI – PYR

The Odyssey is primarily a song of return, hailing from an era when sailors’ long voyages would inspire songs lamenting their absence. Upon his return to Ithaca after twenty years of absence, Odysseus slaughters 108 men who were claiming his wife and throne. In effect, he wipes out the island’s population. His massacre raises the question: What is he coming back to? How is he remembered by his subjects, if at all? Who is he anymore? And why should there be such bloodshed in the first place? The performance will focus on the moment of his return to address the impossibility of homecoming. We can never really return home: time moves relentlessly forward. Reality cannot match what was preserved in memory. Hence, Odysseus returns to his “ghost of a dream.” Moving beyond the confines of conventional theatrical spaces and using Dimitris Maronitis’ remarkable modern Greek translation, Io Voulgaraki and the PYR company – co-founded by Argyris Xafis and Despina Kourti – employ narration rather than realist tropes, shedding light to our psychological connection with one of the bloodiest set pieces in European literature.

Translation: Dimitris Maronitis

Direction - Dramaturgy: Io Voulgaraki

Set design: Anna Fyodorova

Costume design: Magdalini Avgerinou

Music: Savvina Yannatou Movement: Sofia Paschou

Lighting design: Alekos Anastasiou

Cast: Giorgos Dikaios, Despina Kourti, Alexandros Logothetis, Mary Mina, George Biniaris, Argyris Xafis, Giorgos Papageorgiou.


[21-22 July] Cyclops, by Euripides

PANTELIS DENTAKIS

A masculine, raw, violent world of mutual killing and man-eating, where justice is tantamount to the survival of the fittest. In the land of the Cyclops, the Outsider is neither sheltered nor entertained. Rather, s/he is exploited or devoured. There, one can be neither good nor bad. One can only be either frightened and desperate or merciless and cruel. Euripides’ characters are frivolous, ridiculous, sly, opportunistic, decadent, and savage. They are ridiculed and ridicule others in return. They are crushed and seek to crush others. This purely masculine world is explored through the lens of femininity: through the female body, psychology, and expression. An all-female production which seeks to redress the balance between the serious and the ludicrous, between the genres of splatter horror and comedy.

Translation: Pantelis Boukalas

Direction: Pantelis Dentakis

Set and costume design: Georgia Bourda

Movement: Valia Papachristou Music: Eleftherios Veniadis

Lighting design: Sakis Birbilis

Cast: Stefania Goulioti (Cyclops), Anna Kalaitzidou (Odysseus), Katerina Lypiridou (Silenus), Nefeli Maistrali, Maria Mouschouri, Amalia Ninou, Myrto Panagou, Eleni Tsimprikidou (Satyrs).

[4-5 August] Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, by Aeschylus

Olivier Py

Provocative actor, poet and director, and poet Olivier Py attempts to give meaning to the present by re-interpreting two major plays of the Western canon: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and The Suppliants. Directed and translated into French by Olivier Py, this two-part, minimalist production with a cast of three premiered last summer at the Festival d’Avignon. In Prometheus Bound, a play that is at once metaphysical and deeply political, a Titan is tortured by the gods on account of his love for humanity. He thus becomes an eternal symbol of disobedience, a political prisoner par excellence. In Py’s words, Prometheus offers a “lesson in insurrection.” The Suppliants also raises questions about the age-old political issues of democracy, justice, the law, respect for foreigners and women. Aeschylus’ views resonate throughout the performance: the law cannot be the answer to everything. The theatre becomes necessary as a dialectical space of debate and reflection. Traditional notions of catharsis as an act of spectacular purge should be renegotiated: anger should not prevail.

French text - Direction: Olivier Py

Artistic collaboration and costume design: Pierre André Weitz

Cast: Philippe Girard, Frédéric Le Sacripan, Mireille Herbstmeyer.

A Festival d’Avignon production. Résidence FabricA Festival d’Avignon. Supported by: Spedidam. A touring performance. First presentation on 6.07. 2016 at the 70th Festival d’Avignon. Under the auspices of the Institut Français de Grèce. In French, with Greek and English surtitles.

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