Author: gourgourini

“Synthesis”, a new performative installation by choreographer Tzeni Argyriou and visual artist Vassilis Gerodimos, tackles the complex event of the Greek War of Independence. Over 30 artists from the whole spectrum of performance and visual arts take part in the creation of the work, summoning the visitor to a unique experience.

“Synthesis” takes the form of a performative assemblage that correlates the process that produced the historical and socio-political network of the Greek War of Independence with that of the collective work, with its own particular, diverse conflicts, contradictions, aporias, transitions and reversals. During the three days of the event, each of whom conceptually corresponds to one of the three stages of the Greek Revolution (the intoxication of the initial outbreak, the middle-period introversion and the late-phase fatigue, but also the resilience which was a constant characteristic of the whole revolutionary decade), the artists cooperate in real time to create an interactive installation in which the spaces of the Alternative Stage lend themselves to a dynamic process of incessant visual and aural mobility. The creators set out to throw light on the invisible aspects of the official history by emphasising under-recognised factors such as financial management, military administration, ideological developments and everyday life of the revolutionary period.

Through the conversion of the Alternative Stage to a workshop space where the limits between “stage” and “backstage” become permeable and the public experience the preparation and final presentation of a series of concurrent and overlapping actions in active dialogue with each other, the creators of Synthesis trace the intertwined historical “lines” that synthesise the premeditated and the random, highlighting the analogies between a performative and a historical event.

More info:

https://www.nationalopera.gr/en/alternative-stage/es-events/item/3658-synthesis

synthesis21.gr

Maro Fasouli, Virginia Mastrogiannaki and Konstantinos Paleologos, all SNF ARTWORKS Fellows, participate in the performative installation.

As part of this years’ SYNASKí programme, COCHLEA res & Georgia Paizi curate a series of open online conversational scores between 4 or 5 each time teacher/artists, followed by a Q&A.

On Sunday 17th October, the third (and last) meeting takes place on zoom, 1-3pm GMT+3
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6909853355
Meeting ID: 690 985 3355

Number of connections is limited to 100. Subscription on facebook fb.me/e/16rwOFZyN

These conversational scores attempt a non-linear mapping of the field of somatic practices, highlight the key concepts and tools brought by these practices and investigate language, poetic imagery, translation, experiential anatomy, and touch, as well as how these practices link and relate to each other, their place within contemporary movement education, their therapeutic side, and whether they contribute to a democratisation of making and training and a sense of community versus individuality in a post-capitalistic era.

SUNDAY 3 OCT
Giorgos Sioras Deligiannia
Georgia Paizi
Marilena Petridou
Marina Tsartsara
Dimitra Charalampidou

SUNDAY 10 OCT
Timos Zechas
Anna Tzakou
Vasiliki Tsagkari
Despina Chatzipavlidou

SUNDAY 17 OCT
Zoi Dimitriou
Mariela Nestora
Ioanna Palamidous
Eleni Panitska
Ireni Stamou

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SYNASKí investigates the field of somatic practices in education, artistic research and making. SYNASKí includes 105 studio hours, 92 hours of class, 14 different techniques (incl. Alexander Technique, Pilates, Yoga, Axis Sylabus, Rolfing, Antigymnastics, Feldenkrais, SRT, BMC, Franklin, Klein, Authentic Movement, Contemplative Dance Practice, Topf) brought to us 14 different artist/qualified teachers, 4 improvisation jams, 3 open discussions, 1 history & theory session, 1 mentoring session per participant, 1 closing cycle.

Funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture. Supported by Duncan Dance Research Centre Athens.

Collages by Lina Vergopoulou.
Currated by Georgia Paizi & www.cochleares.com

Georgia Paizi is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2021

With Takis’ series of works with magnets and iron filings as our launch pad, and through comprehensible examples and personal experiences, we will awaken the world of our imagination with a magnet. We will follow a sequence of visual art experiments to create our own works of art, while deepening our understanding of the concept of energy flow in nature and in art. A dance of filings and lines will bring to life natural phenomena, magical creatures, stories and, of course, all of our energy to create!

Up to 15 participants
For children aged 6 to 10 years old

Saturday 16 & 30/ 10 | 17.30-19.00
Saturday 13 & 27/ 11 | 17.30-19.00

Maker Space

Free attendance by online pre-registration

For the activity held on 16/10, pre-registration starts on Saturday 09/10 at 12.00
For the activity held on 30/10, pre-registration starts on Friday 22/10 at 12.00

Session #1

We will make “impetuous designs” with ink, filings and our magnet, and awaken the force of a volcano, a twister or, maybe, the waves of the sea? What will become of this momentum? What will it transform into within our artwork?

Session #2

Playing with the concepts of order and disorder, we will unravel a tangle of filings that flows to the rhythm of our magnet. Dots and lines will help us solve this mystery… How do I unravel the tangle with my pencil? How do I impose creative “order” to creative “disorder”?

Session #3

With the help of a magic box that contains filings and plenty of imagination, we will breathe life into the magnetic creatures that will appear before our eyes: are their aliens or, perhaps, mysterious insects? Where do they live, what do they eat, what language do they speak?

Session #4

We will make sculptures out of white clay, filings and small magnets. Tree or insect? Or, perhaps, a volcano? No, it’s a flower… Or a stormy cloud watering an exotic plant!

Design/Implementation: Antigoni Michalakopoulou, Visual Artist/Architect/Educator

*Antigoni Michalakopoulou is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow 2020 in visual arts

More info: https://www.snfcc.org/en/events/art-workshop-awaken-world-magnet/10407

Sam Albatros’ debut novel “faulty boy” is out 15.10.2021 by Hestia publications.

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WE ARE THE HAPPIEST FAMILY IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!

Dad sometimes beats me up with his belt. Once I saw someone beat his son like this in a Greek movie. Since then, every time dad beats me up with his belt, I feel like a movie star.

Mom won’t stop telling me to study, since her parents were so poor she couldn’t afford to go to school. If she wants to go to school that bad, she can go to mine and I’ll stay at home and be the housewise: I told her that once and she slapped me.

I’ll talk about my siblings another time, I’m bored now. They don’t live with us anyway, like normal siblings do.

I have the best friends in the whole wide world! Thanasis is my best friend and he sits next to me at school. We like to play many games but we don’t talk about some of them, we keep them secret. He doesn’t let me talk about them because last time I did, we got beaten up. Then it’s Athena and Sophia, who are also sitting next to each other in the class. Athena is strong and they call her a tomboy and Sophia wears glasses and she’s wise like an owl.

We love each other so much! I love Thanasis, Thanasis loves Athena, Athena loves Sophia (but won’t admit it) and Sophia loves me.

We’re the best students in the class! That’s cause I crib from Thanasis, and Athena cribs from Sophia. Sometimes though Athena forgets to mix it up a little. Once she had copied word by word Sophia’s writing exercise. When the teacher asked what happened, I butted in and said: “Great minds think alike!”.

For the programme of #OccupyAtopos and with reference to the 200th anniversary of the Greek revolution, the artistic director of ATOPOS cvc, Vassilis Zidianakis, invites artist, historian, and researcher Alexis Fidetzis to curate the hybrid, ongoing project #RevoltingBodies. The project aims to integrate the Greek Revolution into a broader dialogue about the revolutionary phenomenon that to an extent defined modernity, immersing into the stories of the bodies upon which both the revolutionary action and the mythologies around it are imposed.

Fidetzis transforms the neoclassical building at Salaminos 72 street into the Revolutionary Headquarters of Language and Image. The exhibited artworks are semiotic references to revolutionary moments and narratives. These artworks do not constitute an aesthetic representation of the history of the notion of revolution, instead they present more of an outline of the methods through which contemporary societies metabolize the revolutionary imaginary. A series of pencil sketches coexist with large-scale prints, creating wall installations. These artworks refer to gendered and racial identities of the revolutionary bodies while at the same time they highlight the questionable lust for glorification in post-revolutionary societies. The statue of a beheaded Jacobin on a pedestal will dominate the inner courtyard of the ‘Revolutionary Headquarters’ and will be a constant reference to the violence imposed by and on the revolutionary bodies. While the library of Atopos has been occupied by a video installation, which bombards the viewer with institutional and non-institutional representations of revolutionary actions.

The whole motley iconography will be homogenized aesthetically, through a specific color filter, a particular green shade that makes its appearance in subcutaneous aspects of the history of the revolutions, from the reference to Robespierre as a spirit as pure as the green of the sea to the turquoise green ”Faberge” eggs of the Romanov estate that Stalin secretly sold to Western tycoons.

*Alexis Fidezis is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow

Duration: October 6 – November 26, 2021
Days & Hours: Wednesday: 16:00 – 20:00 (in the presence of the artist & curator Alexis Fidetzis)
Thursday & Friday: 12:00 – 18:00
Saturday: 16/10, 23/10, 6/11, 20/11, 12:00 – 16:00 (in the presence of the artist & curator Alexis Fidetzis)

Free entrance, registration is required as there is a limited number of visitors allowed (up to 5 visitors per hour)

Drama International Short Film Festival (DISFF) is Greece’s leading short film festival, and the annual meeting place for filmmakers and industry professionals. Based in the picturesque city of Drama, the festival is the leading Greek and South-Eastern European gateway to the world’s most prestigious short film awards, and nominated filmmakers qualify for the European Film Awards (EFA).

This year, 6 of our Fellows join the DISFF with their short movies:

Heatwave (Fokion Xenos)

Motorway 65 (Evi Kalogiropoulou)

Luxenia (Dimitra Kondylatou)

Souls all unaccompanied (Giorgos Teltzidis)

Brutalia, εργάσιμες μέρες (Manolis Mavris)

Soul food (Nikos Tsemperlopoulos)

>>> More info: https://www.dramafilmfestival.gr/en/

How can tradition converse with other forms of artistic expression, such as contemporary dance, without being threatened or offended, but instead enriched and communicated with the respect it deserves to a wider audience? Combining the principles and themes of the dances of his native Crete with his long-standing experience as a modern dancer, Foniadakis creates a palette of rhythms and melodies for directing the flow of the performance. Above all, though, he attempts to convey the strength of the Cretans who dance the pentozalis (pente meaning “five” and being a reference to the Cretans’ fifth attempt for liberation), a ten-step dance (as the Sfakians decided to start the revolution on 10 October 1769) that consists of twelve parts (musical phrases, turnings) in honour of the twelve leaders of the uprising.

Salema: a struggle with time, immobility and the moment. Dancers and musicians mingle in a bizarre game, upsetting memories and emotions.

CREDITS
Choreography:
Andonis Foniadakis

Music supervisors – Orchestration:
Paris Perysinakis, Giorgos Skordalos

Original music:
Paris Perysinakis (adaptations of traditional Cretan tunes)

Dancers:
Nefeli Asteriou, Despina Lagoudaki, Evi Economou, Maro Stavrinou, Stefania Sotiropoulou, Christian Denice, Georgios Kotsifakis, Nikos Grigoriadis, Jan Labner, Anestis (Tasos) Nikas

Musicians:
Giorgos Skordalos: Cretan lyra, Cretan lute, Song
Paris Perisynakis: Viora, Cretan lyra, Cretan lute, Mandocaster
Giorgos Makris: Recorder, Ascomandoura
Petros Varthakouris: Double bass
Vangelis Karipis: Percussion

Assistant choreographers:
Markella Manoliadi, Pierre Magendie

Lighting:
Sakis Birbilis

Costumes:
Anastasios Sofroniou

Production:
visionary culture / Vassilis Grigoropoulos

*Nefeli Asteriou, Maro Stavrinou and Georgios Kotsifakis are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows
** Antonis Foniadakis is member of the selection committee for the 4th SNF Artist Fellowship Program

EP journal is a publishing initiative by Enterprise Projects in the form of an online publication of newly commissioned theoritical and research essays in both greek and english. For issue 5, curator and Fellow Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou is writing about Art and Radioactivity. She looks at the ambivalent relation of art and radioactivity, but also at the possibly ambivalent nature of one’s experience of radioactivity. While great significance has been invested in the bomb, Kyveli turns to the notion of ambivalence as an interruption of the sublime visuality that characterizes nuclear images.

Check and download the essay following the link: http://enterprise-projects.com/ep-journal/

Enterprise Projects is an Athens based projects by our Fellows Danai Giannoglou and Vasilis Papageorgiou (SNF ARTWORKS Fellows).

ARTWORKS Fellows Elissavet Sfyri, Sofia Sfyri, Manolis Mavris, Dimitra Kondylatou, Evi Kalogiropoulou and Nikos Tseberopoulos  take part in Greek Short Stories – In Competition of the 27th Athens International Film Festival (22nd September – 3rd October 2021).

Zabeta
ΔΙΑΡΚΕΙΑ / DURATION: 12’ ΣΚΗΝΟΘΕΣΙΑ / DIRECTORS: Elissavet Sfyri, Sofia Sfyri

A glimpse into the life of the directors’ 90-year-old grandmother as she reminisces her forced immigration to Canada, her escape back to Greece and divorce in the 60’s. A small personal story of patriarchy in Greece.

Brutalia, Days of Labour
ΔΙΑΡΚΕΙΑ / DURATION: 26’ ΣΚΗΝΟΘΕΣΙΑ / DIRECTOR: Manolis Mavris

Perfectly identical girls work day and night. A matriarchal and oligarchic society. What would happen if we replaced bees with humans? Anna observes the universe of her hive. Not being able to consent to the violence that surrounds her, she’ll have to make a radical decision.

Luxenia
ΔΙΑΡΚΕΙΑ / DURATION: 10’ ΣΚΗΝΟΘΕΣΙΑ / DIRECTOR: Dimitra Kondylatou

A receptionist, a waitress and a chambermaid work during the summer season in Hotel Luxenia. One day, a small pause interrupts their automated, everyday routine. Luxenia is about the staged image and the backstage contradictions of the so-called hospitality industry.

Motorway 65
ΔΙΑΡΚΕΙΑ / DURATION: 15’ ΣΚΗΝΟΘΕΣΙΑ / DIRECTOR: Evi Kalogiropoulou

Two siblings live in the industrial town of Elefsina. A bridge connects their neighborhood, inhabited mostly by Black-Sea Greeks, to an area inhabited by immigrants varied background. Social divisions give rise to hostility, reflected in the local sports scene and two siblings’ relationships.

Soul Food
ΔΙΑΡΚΕΙΑ / DURATION: 24’ ΣΚΗΝΟΘΕΣΙΑ / DIRECTOR: Nikos Tseberopoulos

Yannis starts hanging out with Olga, a socially secluded hard rock woman who lives in the basement of his apartment building. Simultaneously, he associates with a group of teenagers, the leader of which bullies Olga whenever he sees her.

More info: http://en.aiff.gr/home_page/

With undiminished interest in the conceptual content of body states, the choreographer and SNF ARTWORKS Fellow Anastasia Valsamaki presents her new work focusing on the different ways to conceive wrestling. ‘From combat sports to the competitiveness between two or more opposing forces’

Although there are several ways of perceiving ‘wrestling’ in terms of movement, the interest is located in the way the performed actions are classified. If with wrestling we usually refer to the escalating conflict and consequently the discharging of an action, the choreographer Anastasia Valsamaki urges us to see the transition from intensity to repression and its reversal in a ‘struggle’ that does not divide winners from losers. The reference to wrestling, therefore, is a way of investigating the movement beyond the corporeality of the wrestlers and the theatricality of the event; by possibly combining the ‘studiousness’ of the choreographic score with its fun and exaggeration.

In this peculiar struggle, five dancers – as a group but also as a quirky ensemble – try to bring together a priori contrasting elements: the initiating explosiveness with the awkwardness of a pause, the refueling of the physical frenzy with the suspension of relaxation, the completion of a pattern that constantly re-articulates by changing its composition. Ultimately, if the goal is to remain ‘in the game’ by constantly inventing new rules, then the fight comes as a promise to renew what keeps us still in the game, even if, momentarily, every evident goal seems to have failed.

Anastasia Valsamaki
Graduated with honours from the Greek National School of Dance​, Anastasia Valsamaki made her debut as a choreographer with “Sync” in June 2016 and she was selected by the Aerowaves network as one of the 20 most promising emerging choreographers in Europe for 2017. The same year, ​she ​attended the Choreography Postgraduate Program (I.C.E) at the SEAD Dance Academy in Austria and presented “Sync” at the Athens & Epidaurus Festival. In 2020 she presented her latest work “DisJoint” within the Onassis New Choreographers Festival 7. For 2020-2021 she received the ARTWORKS award and participated in the 3rd SNF Artist Fellowship Program while selected as an Aerowaves Twenty21 Artist with her work “Body Monolog​ue​”. She continues to be an active dancer and choreographer, while at the same time teaching dance. Get to know her work: https://anastasiavalsamaki.com/

W REST LING
Premiere at ROES Theater
30 September 1, 2, 3 October 2021
Tickets (8€-12€): https://www.viva.gr/tickets/dance/w-rest-l-ing/
Concept & Choreography Anastasia Valsamaki
Music & Sound Composition Jeph Vanger
Dancers Gavriela Antonopoulou, Nefeli Asteriou,
Nikos Grigoriadis, Sotiria Koutsopetrou, Thanos Ragousis
Dramaturgy Anastasio Koukoutas
Lighting Apostolos Strantzalis
Styling Nefeli Asteriou
Production Manager Eleni Valsamaki
Producer MINDTHELOOP
Photographers Emmanouela Pechynaki, Marieta Rou
With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
Entrants to the theater must have a vaccination certificate or disease certificate or a negative COVID test (72 hours for pcr test – 48 hours for rapid test).

* Anastasia Valsamaki, Nefeli Asteriou and Jeph Vanger are SNF ARTWORKS Fellows

As I told you, they were made with a technique called solar etching, in which a light-sensitive metal plate is exposed to ultraviolet radiation and washed out with cool water instead of acid chemicals. The rest is carried out with a traditional printmaking process; oil-based inks on cotton paper that runs through the intaglio press.

The subjects come from photo archives I have been assembling in Attica: urban environments, vegetal and geological formations, inscriptions on architectural structures, public sculptures, and archeological artifacts in Kerameikos. I fed this visual material into generative algorithms that run on artificial neural networks. Loosely translated, this is a process of “breeding” images that follows a predictive system inspired by biological processes and game theory …

Generated by Clouds ☁️ Etched by the Sun ☀️

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PETROS MORIS
SOLAR VECTOR

New Etchings

22 SEPTEMBER – 23 OCTOBER 2021

opening on Wednesday 22 September from 5 to 9 pm

*Petros Moris is SNF ARTWORKS Fellow