Protesting in a performative way...

Back in Greece for Christmas vacation... let's say... These days here in Greece and especially Athens nothing is festive. We are in the middle of a social crises with every day protests and riots all around. The reason why all these begun was the fact that a police officer shot dead a 15-year-old boy, named Alexandros Grigoropoulos, some days ago. 

Greek people became furious and turned openly against the conservative government and its unpopular social and economic policies as well as against the police forces and their tactics.

During the last days people express their feelings with protests that often turn out to have the form of a riot. Thousands of protesters burned and destroyed buildings and public property in Athens and other major cities. More than 60 people have been hurt and many have been arrested by the police with or without reason. How and when this is going to end is something that nobody knows yet.

Under these circumstances we (a group of friends and me, all of us coming from different disciplines) decided to protest once more but this time with a different way, a performative way. We decided to focus on the deaths, because that boy was not the first one who was killed the last few years by the Greek police with no good reason and for sure he is not going to be the last one. So, using very simple materials (white paint, brushes and our bodies), we went to the protest and we would paint on the street, the pavements and the walls figures of people, as the police paints the figure in a crime scene. We wanted to make clear that all this is a big crime scene were innocents are killed just because. Just that, so simply.

The task was difficult. The streets were crowded by the protesters and the police was around. Everything had to be done quickly. But the most great part of this after all was the reactions of the people. Nobody blamed us for destroying public property. In contrary everybody was willing to help either by verbally support either by lying on the ground so that we would create his figure on the street, ether by stopping the protesters for a few seconds so that we would be able to finish what we were doing. Nobody asked why. In it's simplicity this performative activity was crystal clear to everyone, even to the angry Greek protesters.

We hope that we will continue this in the next few days. We want to transform these main streets of central Athens to a big crime scene. And in this crime scene people will continue to walk, protest and driving their cars as always, as if nothing has happened or not?

There are some photos of that here. Soon I will make the video as well...

First draft for Danny's Costume for the Overlook project

This character is an outsider, different from Jack and Wendy, but it still feels like I need to find a link to connect him...

The Photos!!!

Windows In Paris!

There are some  problems with the photos, they can't be uploaded ... Coming soon

Last weekend I visited Paris. Everything was Christmasy and really magical. But the most impressive of all was the windows at the big shopping centers. These are just some still photos from the windows who can't in anyway describe the reality. Each window had another theme and it's purpose could be either highlighting a cloth or just decorative. All these, up to now sound really regular. The irregular element of these is that every single one of those was mechanically supported so the model-dolls or the decorative dolls were all mechanically moving puppets who would walk, dance, run or whatever. Additionally each one of the windows was accompanied by music or sounds specifically selected for the theme that the window would represent.

Those windows, as they informed have an audience. People go there just to see as if they would go to an art gallery or a performance. Then they discuss and write critiques in the papers and the magazines and if something is considered to be inappropriate - for example- the audience can demand to be changed. These made me return to all these thoughts of mine about the connections between theatre and installation. Should we add marketing somewhere near those as well? What do they have in common and what not, because, after all the do use the same materials and the same means of communication. A simple window can be considered as a set and these windows now can be considered as installations maybe.Is the difference between those that they serve a different purpose, that they are just decorative, they try to promote a product by impressing their ''audience''? Yes maybe, but I think that lots of installations in galleries and lots of plays have exactly the same characteristics and the only aspect that might change is that the product is the artist. 

But anyway... they were just windows... Marry Christmas!

About Station House Opera's Mind Out

The Station House Opera is a company founded in 1980. Their work varies and it could be characterized as theatre and site-specific performance at the same time.

Last Thursday, for the first time, I had the chance to finally attend to one of their plays,called Mind Out at the Battersea Arts Center, London and I am really glad to finally say that I went to the theatre to see something and I totally loved it. 

The play was a five character constant game that made you think how it could be if you did not have a mind of your own, but someone else always telling you what to do and what you want to do.

In an extremely "clean" set -at the begging at least-you could see clearly the separation of the body, the mind and the inner thought of each performer/character. But what started as a nice game, as the time went by it started transforming to a "spooky" mess were the joy and the safety would gradually disappear to give their place to an unsafe feeling, a mess and sometimes even fear. Why? Because when you feel like somebody else controls you, like somebody else gives you orders you might feel safe or unsafe depending on your character. But even if that starts to break and everything around you is uncertain and you have no idea who is controlling who and what, this is nothing. And nothing causes fear. To me at least.

All these were presented in the simplest way. With a set that passed from the same stages as the characters. From clean and tidy to messy and dirty. With costumes that were absolutely ordinary but successfully chosen for each one of the characters. And three musicians that appear from nowhere that were playing with your temper in you didn't know if you wanted to laugh with them or just start shouting at them to stop the music!

So simple,so full of meaning, so full of tense. Just like that! :)