A series of events: “Unheard stories”

 

For the 2023-2024 season, the National Theatre of Greece’s Experimental Stage for Emerging Artists is programming a series of events entitled “Unheard stories”, providing a space for narratives and people that are often absent from the public dialogue. The events aim to encourage discussion and reflection around inclusion and representation in the performing arts, and how art can influence and fundamentally change a society. This year, the Experimental Stage is also organising a discussion on the theatre scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann and post-dramatic theatre.

 

Wednesday, 10 January 2024 | 9.15pm

“Public Discourse and the Performing Arts: Inclusion and Exclusion”

What are the stories that go unheard and what are the reasons why? How can the performing arts help empower voices that are not given a forum in the public discourse? A discussion about inclusion in both public discourse and the performing arts.

 

Participants:
Eleni Efthymiou, director, actor
Thanasis Kampagiannis, lawyer
Camille Louis, philosopher, playwright, activist
Prodromos Tsinikoris, director, playwright, actor,
former head of the NTG’s Experimental Stage
Aris Chatzistefanou, journalist

The moderator is the journalist Argyro Bozoni

 

Wednesday, 31 January 2024 | 21:00

 “Tribute to the theatre scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann and post-dramatic theatre”

Participants:
Anestis Azas, director, playwright
Eleni Varopoulou, theatre scholar and critic
Alexander Karschnia, director, co-founder of the theatre group andcompany&Co
Matthias Pees, theatre critic, playwright, artistic director of the Berliner Festspiele
Argyro Chioti, director, actor

Participating by video link: René Pollesch (director, writer, artistic director of the Berlin Volksbühne) and Daniel Wetzel (director, writer, co-founder of Rimini Protokoll)

The moderator is Alexandros Efklidis, assistant professor in the Department of Performing and Digital Arts of the University of the Peloponnese and programme curator for the Greek National Opera Alternative Stage

 

February-April 2024

 “Conversing with the ballroom scene today”

Events focusing on ballroom culture. Personalities from the Greek and foreign ballroom scene and individuals that the scene is meant for talk with Greek ballroom trailblazer Tila Kareola about their own stories within the scene,  the ballroom scene in a European context, the role of “whiteness” and representation, cultural appropriation, and the importance of ballroom culture for trans and queer persons of colour in 2024.

Events curator: Tila Kareola

* Dates to be announced soon

* Ballroom, also known as ballroom culture or house ball culture, is a subculture that sprang up in Harlem, New York, with Black and Latina trans women at its core. Originating in drag pageants, the culture first began when Crystal and Lottie Labeija organised the House of Labeija house ball in Harlem in 1972 as a reaction to the colour discrimination that Crystal had suffered as a drag pageant contestant. The culture has evolved into a safe space for queer persons of colour, and for the LGBTQI community in general, and has spread all over the world. Despite the way in which it has expanded, evolved and diversified by region, ballroom must remain a vital space for expression and empowerment, first and foremost for people facing multiple oppressions due to queerness or racism, and is part of Black culture.

 

May 2024

 “Autobiographical writing”

French writer Edouard Louis (The end of Eddy, History of Violence, Who Killed My Father, A Woman's Battles and Transformations, etc.) discusses autobiographical writing and its political impact on society today with Katerina Giannopoulou, director of the Experimental Stage for Emerging Artists, and journalist Grigoris Bekos.

* Date to be announced soon

 

8 & 9 June 2024

 “The Factory of the Collective/La Fabrique du commun”
Kom.post collective (Camille Louis, Emmanuelle Nizou)

The Factory of the Collective is a performance in the form of a discussion, which transforms the theatre space into a Forum that combines the creation of a collective with the personal meeting of individuals. Having spent a long time with people working in the field of hospitality and offering solidarity to people who need it both in Athens and Lesvos, the artists of Kom.post collected their voices and incorporated them into a polyphony of sounds and images, creating a symphony of disparate interlocutors. Audiences have the unique opportunity to hear the unseen heroes of a hidden story that diverges from the official account, to converse with them and join their voices with those of so many others.

 

Entrance to the discussions is free.

Latest updated: 16/01/2024