FOYER D | Interdisciplinary Interartistic Dialogues centred around the Language of the Month | Design – Curation: Natasha Triantafylli | on the first Sunday of every month – begins 5 October

Inspired by the themes that emerge each month from the productions in the National Theatre of Greece’s artistic programme – including philosophy, nature and climate change, and people and power – prominent figures from the world of science will engage in a creative dialogue with leading artists on the first Sunday of each month. What does it mean to deliver a lecture using the language of art? How much art lies hidden within the language of science?

Foyer D 6 | Violence
For International Women’s Day on Sunday 8 March, at the Main Stage of the Ziller Building, the National Theatre of Greece is holding the sixth Foyer D Interdisciplinary Interartistic Dialogue, the final one for this season, which draws inspiration from the theme of NTG artistic programme for March, Violence. Design – Curation: Natasha Triantafylli

The distinguished linguist Angeliki Alvanoudi of the University of Thessaloniki talks on stage with the rapper Αeon and the actress Vicky Volioti. How does a lecture on the symbolic violence embedded in language – which legitimises male dominance and female subjugation – interact with rap music as a dynamic form of engagement with the position of women today, but also with passages from plays that touch on similar themes?

Language as a semiotic system mediates in the interpretation of experience and categorises the world in ways that reproduce social hierarchies and inequalities. The words we use are linked with implicit meanings around the ideology of the man as the norm and women as a deviation and subordinate other.

What are the characteristics of the language that excludes women from the world of symbolic representation? How does female difference become invisible, marked as a negative category through the generalised use of the male gender and the semantic devaluation of women? What forms does misogyny take online? Can we stand up to symbolic violence? 

Do You Want To Or Not?– A workshop about sexual desire.
Foyer D 6 will be followed by an initiative from the sex education group Bloom, called Do You Want To Or Not?– A workshop about sexual desire. Educators Vily Chatzigianni and Virginia Xythali invite participants to engage with the multifaceted nature of desire, deconstructing dominant narratives and embracing a more inclusive and multilayered understanding of human sexuality. Through a combination of interactive discussions and activities, they will explore what sexual desire is, what influences it, and how it is expressed. More about the Bloom group here.

About the guests
Angeliki Alvanoudi is Assistant Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Department of French Language and Literature at the University of Thessaloniki. Her research focuses on the relationship between language, gender and social justice, contact linguistics in the Greek diaspora of Australia, and grammatical issues in linguistic interaction. Her academic interests include Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, and Conversation Analysis. She is the author of Grammatical gender in interaction: Cultural and cognitive aspects (Brill, 2015) and Modern Greek in diaspora: An Australian perspective (Palgrave Pivot, 2019). Her work has been published in prestigious international academic journals. She is the Book Review Editor of the journal Sociolinguistic Studies. For a number of years, she has been an academic associate at the Institute of Modern Greek Studies (the Manolis Triandaphyllidis Foundation). She has also had articles published in the Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini, and has been interviewed on SBS and the BBC News World Service.

Aeon was born in Crete and began learning music at the age of five through the Orff system. When she was six, she took up the violin, followed by the Cretan lyra and traditional percussion at the age of nine. As a 13-year-old, she studied the lyra with sympathetic strings under Ross Daly and Kelly Thoma. She has attended seminars on traditional music, Turkish songs and Bulgarian music. She studied traditional Balkan music and the gadulka for 18 months in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and later studied the Cretan lyra at the University of Ioannina. She first rapped at the age of 15 and in 2015 debuted with her first track. Since then, she has put out various projects, including Aeon LP (2018), 06 59 together with Zero 25 52 (2019), Furia (2021-2022), Tulipe Noir (2023) and the Xyma Rap Project (2024). She released her latest album, Haimalina, in April 2025. She writes beats and sings.

Vicky Volioti was born in Bonn, West Germany, to a Greek father and a German mother. She is a graduate of the National Theatre of Greece Drama School and the Theatre Studies Department of the University of Athens. In the theatre, she has worked with Nikos Mastorakis, Giorgos Michailidis, Michael Cacoyannis, Stamatis Fasoulis, Yorgos Lanthimos, Maya Liberopoulou, Thodoris Atheridis, Vassilis Mavromatis, Matthias Langhoff, Spyros Evangelatos, Marianna Calbari, Froso Lytra, Themis Moumoulidis, Tania Krevaika, Lena Kitsopoulou, Pantelis Dentakis, Thomas Moschopoulos, Simos Kakalas, Odysseas Papaspiliopoulos, Elena Mavridou, Alexandros Cohen, Nikaiti Kontouri, and others on classic and modern plays. She has most recently appeared in Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof and in Meghan Kennedy’s I See You, which she also directed, at the Mikro Pallas Theatre. She has in addition directed: Be Happy! (two one-act plays by Franz Xaver Kroetz), Dangerous Liaisons by Christopher Hampton, Isabelle Rimbaud – My Arthur by Efstathia, and the collection of texts Kabarett Katakombe. She has moreover worked in film and television. She received the First State Prize for a Female Role for the film Me Mia Kravgi by Vasiliki Iliopoulou, and the Best Actress Award at the London Greek Film Festival for My Blood, directed by Diamantis Karanastasis. She represented Greece in the Shooting Stars Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She translates novels for the publisher Kastaniotis.

Foyer D 5 | Society
On Sunday 8 February, Foyer D 5 welcomes Stathis N. Kalyvas, a professor of Political Science at the University of Oxford, who will deliver a lecture on the concept of Change, both social and individual, at the Ziller Building Hall, engaging with the art of cinematic narrative through the work of the award-winning director Yorgos Zois.

How do we attune ourselves to coming change? And how do we manage change that has already arrived? Do we primarily operate in terms of the past or the present? How do we succeed in aligning ourselves with the logic of the future? And how do we connect individual strategies at the micro level with the dynamics of change at the macro level?

By telling the story of a landmark, the former airport at Ellinikon, from its years of operation to the present day, the social sciences use observation and research to interpret the phenomenon of Change, while the art of the moving image reveals the experience of metamorphosis and time.

This conversation of opinions, reflections and questions will be approached through the language of science and the codes of cinema.

About the guests
Stathis N. Kalyvas is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oxford, where he holds the Gladstone Chair of Government, the oldest chair of political science in Britain. He is also a Fellow of All Souls College at Oxford. Until 2018, he was the Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale. His main area of research is civil war and political violence in general. He has published around 50 research papers and is the author of English-language books including The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Greece: What Everyone Should Know (Oxford University Press, 2015). His books in Greek include Disasters and Triumphs: the 7 Cycles of Modern Greek History (Papadopoulos, 2015), Civil Passions: 23 Questions and Answers about the Civil War (with Nikos Marantzidis, Metaichmio, 2015), and Big Bang 1970-1973: The Flourishing of Culture during the Years of the Dictatorship (with Natasa Triantafylli, Metaichmio, 2025). He is a regular contributor to the Greek daily Kathimerini, while his articles have appeared in major international news publications such as the New York Times, the Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs. In 2008 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2020 to the British Academy.

Yorgos Zois is a filmmaker. His films have been screened at leading international festivals (Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Telluride) and he has received numerous awards and accolades worldwide. In Greece, he has been honoured by the Hellenic Film Academy with Best Short Film for Casus Belli, Best Newcomer for Interruption, and Best Direction, Best Screenplay, and Best Feature Film for Arcadia. His films have been selected by the renowned Criterion platform, and he has twice been nominated for the European Film Awards.

Arcadia, his second feature film, is the official Greek entry for the 2026 Academy Awards.

Foyer D 4 | Ritual
Gerasimos Makris, Professor of Social Anthropology at Panteion University, came to the Foyer with dancer and performer Ioanna Toumpakari. With the help of Aggeliki Toubanaki, they explored the meaning of and need for ritual, presenting examples from Papua New Guinea and Sudan. Drawing on social anthropology, which observes, analyses and interprets customs and institutions, and dance, which is often an integral part of many ceremonies, they investigate how ritual has bridged the gap between everyday life and the sacred for thousands of years.

Giving structure to time, both on a communal and an individual level, ritual expresses but also shapes worldviews and social systems. Despite the enormous cultural differences in the way that ceremonies have traditionally been performed, they have many structural elements in common and follow symbolic mechanisms that speak to universal human characteristics. 

Although rituals are today understood in the so-called West as purely symbolic events, most of them have historically been approached by participants – and in other parts of the world still are – with reverential awe, respect and admiration, frequently as temporary passages from the world of the living to that of dead ancestors, spirits and gods. 

During rituals, priests, magicians, shamans, mystics and spiritual leaders seek and orchestrate redemption, purification, forgiveness and benediction through invocations and sacrifices in order to ensure abundance, health, well-being and hope for their communities, filling the present and the future with meaning. In this context, life and death, violence and ecstasy, politics and religion, ethics and Dionysian pleasure intertwine in ways that are often surprising.

Foyer D 3 | The Body
Foyer D 3 welcomed the distinguished scientist Dr. George Dangas, Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and Director of Cardiovascular Innovation at Mount Sinai Hospital, to a unique on-stage conversation from the heart with the internationally acclaimed soprano Myrtò Papatanasiu at the Main Stage of the Ziller Building, with Dimitris Theocharis on piano.

The effect of medical science on our lives. The influence of music on our emotions. Science and art are fuelled by anxiety and hope – in different ways, but with a common goal: people. The first beat of a heart. The last beat of a heart. And many others in between. Rhythmic, irregular, fast, slow. Beats of joy and beats of pain.

What happens in the heart of Alcina, the heroine of Handel’s opera of the same name, when she sings the famous “Ah, mio cor!” (“Ah! My heart!”)? How much are emotions connected to the physiology and function of the heart?

 “Nel cor più non mi sento” (“In my heart I no longer feel”) sings Paisiello’s heroine. When does a heart first get sick? What preventive measures can be taken? What are the most modern and innovative treatments?

 “My heart and your heart know…” say Metastasio’s lyrics in Bellini’s aria “Per pietà, bell’idol mio”. How much did we know about how the heart works hundreds of years ago? What do we know today? What would we like to know in the future?

How much blood does the heart pump through the body during Tosti’s “Lasciami! Lascia ch’io respiri”, with lyrics by Gabriele D’Annunzio?

Can love, romance, and friendship really heal a heart?

Can a medical error cause it to stop beating?

Can anxiety, fear, and hatred burden a heart?

How can medical science intervene and save it?

This is a lecture that starts with a historical overview of the science of medicine since ancient times, examines the physiology and function of the heart, and presents current state-of-the-art healthcare practices. It is an on-stage dialogue with opera heroines who sing about the heart that loves, that aches, that no longer feels, and that despairs.
 

Featured music:
Ah, mio cor!– Aria from the opera Alcina by George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
Nel cor più non mi sento – Aria from the opera La Molinara by Giovanni Paisiello (1740 – 1816)
Per pietà, bell’idol mio - Aria da camera by Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835), set to a poem by Metastasio
Lasciami! Lascia ch’io respiri – The first song from the cycle Quattro canzoni d’ Amaranta (1907) by Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846–1916), set to a poem by Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863–1938)

Foyer D 2 | The Environment 
Dr. Phoebe Koundouri, Professor of Environmental Economics at the Athens University of Economics and Business and the University of Cambridge, delivers a very special holistic lecture on the environment, while the artist Vassilis Gerodimos and his collaborator in set construction, Freddy Giza, create an innovative site-specific art installation using paper as a structural material that is at once both solid and fragile.

The visual environment and the art are inspired by science, and the pioneering research and presentation of sustainable systems that connect nature, society and the economy. They reflect a different way of thinking, focusing on the need for collaboration and the interactive building of goals, with the aim of sustainability

How can scientific knowledge and the lived experience of art coexist, creating a specific setting where nothing is in isolation? How is the common ground of the two fields, science and art, expressed – a common ground with human beings, the impact of their activity, and their capability to work towards long-term solutions at the centre?
 

Foyer D 1| Cosmology
In a unique on-stage encounter, the cosmologist Dr. Spyros Basilakos, director and board president of the National Observatory of Athens, and the actress Electra Nikolouzou attempted to expand the space where science and art meet. In a highly original presentation on the history of the world and humankind, the languages of science and the stage are in conversation with each other, creating a strikingly different theatrical universe where cosmological and human questions come together, seeking an intellectual but also an emotional understanding of the reality we inhabit.

How was the world created? Where do we come from?  What is it that surrounds us? Are concepts such as the ever-expanding universe, space and time, gravity, dark matter, connected to the way we live, the way we love, the way we think? How can human emotions, imagination, enthusiasm – and fear as well – relate with scientific discoveries in this first on-stage meeting of a scientist and an artist, which highlights how the two fields are in conflict but also illuminates the common ground of inquiry and the pursuit of truth?