Events Archive - Page 9 of 19

The Miss Hellas Drag Pageant, in collaboration with PLYFA and Magna Events, organizes the fourth pageant in a row for Drag Queens from all over Greece. The participants will compete in two categories, Pageant Queen in an Evening Gown and Show Us Your Talent – Drag show/Performance. Jury will be Drag Queen Tammy Tsanaka, crowned Miss Hellas Drag 2021, fashion designer Angelika Darklin and a famous surprise singer. Drag Queen Doukissa is the producer and presenter of the evening. Don’t miss a spectacular night full of glamorous queens and drag shows. We are waiting for you on May 18 at 21:00.

After BLUE, the first part of a theatrical color pentalogy created by the theater group «Bleu en Haut Bleu en Bas» (Blue Above Blue Below) based in Switzerland and premiered in 2016 in Geneva, Anna Lemonaki returns to Athens with success of her latest project G.O.L.D. which premiered at the Festival de la Bâtie in August 2022.

The G.O.L.D. it is inspired by today, a society that fundamentally divides and structures society into triumphant winners and insignificant losers.

What might happen if we let go of the pressure created by the imperative to succeed? We all face failure on a regular basis, but we tend to deny it, to avoid the subject, because we have learned to keep our failures hidden. Dazzling success, intoxicating glory and the need for recognition are idealized. Failure is not even an option and is always associated with shame. First, we focus on the stories of our lives that are connected to success. What happens if we balance the balance, that is, if we give voice and space to both imperfections and all that they contain?

There are small, everyday failures that have little effect on us, stinging and pitiful failures, and larger, brilliant, even majestic failures that are frighteningly beyond our powers, that can affect us significantly, that remind us of our weaknesses and the our own fragility – we feel discouraged, broken, on the edge of the abyss, but what happens when we recover, when we rise? Many are the possible reactions: flight, self-criticism, reorientation, panic, indifference, self-flagellation, inertia, relentless self-criticism, denial, or an apocalypse that reveals the futility and emptiness of past aspirations…

From luxury to poverty, from the ultimate moment of joy to tragedy, from power displayed to fragility concealed or revealed, through all these moments of transition and their exaggerated “landscapes” G.O.L.D. travels.

In Switzerland, after Blue, Anna created Bloody Fuchsia, White, G.O.L.D. (Glory or Little Dreams) and is now preparing Black – What a Beaty-Full Catastrophe which will be staged at the Comédie de Genève in 2025.

At the same time, she is preparing her first choreographic project and film Kiss and Fly.

BIOGRAPHY ANNA LEMONAKI

Anna was born in Athens. It grows in Panama, Crete and Athens. He obtained a degree in Political Science in Athens and Bergen in 2006 and a master’s degree in Sociology and Media from the University of Friborg. He studied at the Serge Martin Theater School (Geneva) and graduated in 2013. He attends workshops with Susan Batson at Interkunst (Berlin, 2014 and 2017), with Andreas Manolikakis (President of the Actors Studio, New York) in Athens and with Damian De Schrijver (TgStan, Belgium) in Geneva in 2018. Followed by CAS in Acting and Text Dramaturgy at HETSR and University of Lausanne (2018-2020).

Anna performs roles for Lena Kitsopoulou in Haire Nymfi (2013), Red Riding Hood – First Blood (2015) and Cry (2018-2021) at the Saint-Gervais Theater in Geneva and at the Techni Theater. He collaborates with, among others, Philippe Quesne, Nikos Karathanos, Adina Secretan, the theater company Cie Daniel Blake for the theater venture Opa (2nd prize – PREMIO 2017). In the cinema he plays the lead role in the film La nuit est encore jeune [The night is still long], directed by Sri Lankan native Indika Udugampola (Promising Director Award at the Colombo International Festival, 2015). She founded the experimental theater and music company Cie Bleu en Haut Bleu en Bas together with the musician Samuel Schmidiger (2015) and presented the first two parts of her quintet, BLEU and FUCHSIA SAIGNANT at the La Bâtie festival in 2019 and the third part BLANC ( SSA Prize, 2020) in Le Grütli (2021). Presents the show P.E.T.U.L.A. bye bye (2017) at the Saint-Gervais theater and at KET in Athens. She is invited by Le Poche theater and directs the play SAPPHOx, written by Sarah-Jane Moloney (2020). In 2002 he presents the G.O.L.D. at the La Bâtie festival. He works as a writer and dramaturg for the dance work Bis N.S (as usual) by the choreographer Ioannis Mantafounis at the Lyon Opera (2021) and the work A la carte at the Frankfurt Dresden Ballet Company (2023). In 2023/2024 he makes the dance-climbing performance and film Kiss and Fly in Leonidio and Tarifa and prepares the project Black: What a Beauty-Full Catastrophe (2025, Comédie de Genève, Geneva).

Reviews for G.O.L.D

At the festival of La Bâtie, the art of flying, falling and flying again.

As we all know, failure is not a bad thing, but a necessary step towards progress. However, in our performance-driven society, success is the only thing we celebrate. In Geneva, before Sion, Vevey and Paris, Anna Lemonaki dispels this cliché.

Le temps, Marie-Pierre Genecand, 2022

A study in failure with poetry, humor and sensitivity, and a brilliant group of performers – hopefully we’ll see it in Athens too.

Giorgos Voudiklaris, EDITORS’ NEWSPAPER, 2022

In “G.O.L.D.” Anna Lemonaki creates an ambitious show with anti-heroes who will deconstruct the myths surrounding her success and her promise of a “happy ending”. It uses the glamor of a ‘fancy’ system to speak to all levels and issues surrounding the world of work and the imperative of careers.

Entry is not recommended for persons under 14 years of age

Can we become the dreamers of our everyday lives?

Three bodies search for Fantasy in the everyday as they flow into undefined places and snapshots. Ambiguous intentions and actions, passages of common sense and freedom, passages of understanding and exasperation, form a kinetic language of exploration.

The performance FANTASIST is inspired by the everyday body that survives, invents, dances, to envision Fantasy in today as a daily practice of freedom; as a universal good of the human field of action, both individually and collectively, altering the dipole of thought that often he describes as either a fantasy shock threat or an extraordinary ability nostalgically available to a select few.

PIANO CITY ATHENS 2024 presents a concert where Jazz, Funk, Ragtime, Blues, Classic, Fusion, Latin intersect in an unprecedented sonic feast.

An exuberant musical journey without limits with two pianos, drums and double bass, under the spring Attic moon.

Two distinct pianists, Christos Papageorgiou and Anastasios Pappas meet on the occasion of their love for music of many different styles. The line-up is completed by two accomplished musicians, Takis Capogiannis on double bass and Seraphim Bellos on drums.
A crossover program, which combines the classical style with improvisation and with other popular music genres, such as Jazz, Funk, Fusion etc.

Biographies
Christos Papageorgiou – piano
Christos Papageorgiou is a composer, pianist, teacher and producer of the radio and television shows “Looking for the Lady with Strychnine”, “OMMA in the Arts”, “Station Megaro” of ERA3 and ET1.
He has been honored with many first international prizes for piano and composition, among which in 1999 the 1st prize of the International Composition Competition “2 Agosto” in Bologna, Italy (& Award of the President of the Italian Republic), in 1998 with the prize of the “Union of Greek Critics, of Theater and Music” and the 2013 ASCAP Award received by the Buffalo NY Philharmonic for the American premiere of the work of Pyrrhios.
He has performed to date in many music centers of the world, such as Lincoln Center, Carnegie (Weil) Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Barbican Hall, St James Palace, Kioi Hall Tokyo and Rudolfinum Dvorak Hall. He has collaborated with orchestras such as the Philharmonia, the Orchester Symphonique du Capitole de Toulouse, the Odessa Philharmonic Symphony of Munich, the Malaga Symphony Orchestra, the State Orchestra of Athens, the State Orchestra of Thessaloniki, the National Symphony Orchestra of the E.R.T., the N.H.K. of the Japanese Radio and Television, the Orchestra Sinfonica del Emiglia Romagna “Arturo Toscanini” and the State Orchestra of Istanbul. He has recorded for international TV and radio channels such as the BBC, Berlin Radio 3, Swiss Radio, RAI and ARD. His works have been performed by internationally renowned artists, such as the New York Philharmonic Chamber Soloists, Theodoros Kerkezos, Oscar Giglia and Maria Faradouri.
He was Director of the Third Program and Special Advisor of ERT.

Anastasios Pappas – piano
Anastasios Pappas began his musical studies at the age of 5 with his mother. She continued and graduated from the class of Maria Hairiorgou-Sigara, receiving her piano diploma with honors and first prize.
He completed his postgraduate studies as a scholarship holder of the “Gina Bachauer” Foundation and the British Council, at the Royal Academy of Music in London, with the diploma of postgraduate studies in piano with distinction.
He participated and was awarded in international competitions in Italy, England and America.
Appearances in countries such as America, England, Spain, Romania, Italy, Portugal, Holland, Kazakhstan and Armenia followed. Having played in major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Southbank Center, Phillips Zaal, he received excellent reviews.
He has collaborated with all Greek orchestras, as well as with the London Sinfonietta, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Moldavia Philharmonic Cluj, George Enescu Philharmonic and Budapest Festival Orchestra. Among the conductors he has collaborated with are Ivan Fischer, John Georgiades, Diego Masson, Alexandru Lascae, Emil Simon, Alexandros Myrat, Miltos Logiadis, Theodoros Antoniou, Giorgos Petrou. Theodoros Antoniou and Kyriakos Sfetsas have composed and dedicated piano concertos to him.
He has recorded for the Third Program of the Hellenic Radio, as well as for the radio stations WQXR (New York), Classical FM (London) and Radio Romania Musical (Bucharest).

Takis Kapogiannis – Double Bass
He studied double bass at the Orpheus Conservatory with Panagiotis Kontos and at the Academy of Music and Fine Arts in Graz with Johannes Auersperg.
After the end of his studies he became a member of the Orchestra of the National Opera and the Orchestra of Colors under Manos Hadjidakis. From the founding of Camerata – Orchestra of the Friends of Music until 2000, he held the position of Principal in the double basses.
As part of his involvement in chamber music, he has collaborated with important Greek and foreign musicians. As a soloist, he has repeatedly appeared with Camerata – Friends of Music Orchestra and with K.O.A.
From 1989 to 2009 he was a professor at the Philippos Nakas Conservatory and since then he has been teaching at the Athens Conservatory and the Orpheus Conservatory.

Seraphim Bellos – drums
He started playing drums at 16 with amateur rock bands.
Since 1991 he has been involved in Jazz. He initially studied at the Athens percussion workshop of Nikos Touliatos

PIANO CITY ATHENS 2024 presents a music and dance performance

The award-winning pianist and composer
and Bob Wilson’s great dancer and choreographer
in an original collaboration.

What is the sound of stillness, what is the sound of vigorous movement?
A long performance (3 hours) where the viewer is free to exist and move in the space as he wants and feels and for as long as he wants, as he thus becomes part of the special action.
The music is written at that moment, as is the choreography.
A game with time, the relationship between movement and music, communication, existence. Light, sound and movement star in an autonomous, original, creative universe!

The first contact with movement is the stimulus of sound, whether external, from the rustling of a tree to a sonata, or internal, such as the sound of a heartbeat.
Listening to the piano I can only hear it with my whole body. It can sweep me into the torrent of its melody, move me rhythmically, or immobilize me. It can make me act and dance against what I hear, allowing the viewer to both hear and see.
The music and the dance create a space in which the viewer feels the movement through the music and the music through the movement. The body, as matter, affects the immaterial space created by the sound of the music written at that moment.

Biographies

MARIANNA KAVALLIERATOU | choreographer/dancer
Began dancing at the Carol Hanis Ballet School. She graduated from the London Contemporary Dance School, with studies in Contemporary Dance and Choreography. She continued her studies with the Onassis Foundation Scholarship, for one year, at SYNY Purchase College in New York. He then attended classes at Martha Graham’s school for three years.
From 1992 until today, she has been collaborating with Robert Wilson at the Watermill Center in New York as a dancer-choreographer-movement teacher coordinating and conducting the summer workshops.
In 2010 she formed her own group for which she choreographed many works participating in important festivals in Greece and abroad.
As a choreographer he collaborated with important artists, such as Stathis Livathinos, Dimitris Bogdanos, Yiannis Kalabrianos, Lydia Koniordou, Nikos Xydakis, etc.
He also collaborated in a choreographic project in presentations of the Hermes house in Athens.
Since 2016 he has been teaching choreography/improvisation at KSOT and at drama schools in Greece.
From 2001-2017 he has taught dance and improvisation workshops at the Watermill Center of Art and Humanities New York.

THODORIS ECONOMOU | piano, composition
He studied piano at the Athens Conservatory with Aliki Vatikiotis and completed his postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music in London with teacher Irina Zaritskaja.
In 2004 he composed the music for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Athens after being commissioned by the French production company ECA2.
In the theater he collaborates with the National Theatre, the K.TH.BE, the Art Theatre, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the National Opera, the Piccolo Teatro, etc. He has written the music for over one hundred and fifty theatrical performances directed by Robert Wilson, Yiannis Houvardas, Yiannis Moskas, Sotiris Tsafoulias, Nikos Mastorakis, Stamatis Fasoulis, among others, as well as for important film productions.
He has collaborated with symphony orchestras and other smaller ensembles in Greece, Cyprus, Chicago, New York, Boston, Baltimore, London, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Alexandria, South Africa and Beijing.
In 2011, he was awarded the “Dimitris Mitropoulos” award from the Theater Museum of Greece, as well as being awarded for the composition of original music in the audience awards from Athinorama magazine (2010 – 2022-2023), while in 2023 he was also awarded by the Theater Critics Association and performing arts. He teaches at the Higher Drama School of the Art Theatre.

PIANO CITY ATHENS 2024
presents a show for the whole family

The traditional karagiozis player Kostas Makris in a unique collaboration with the musician Stavros Xiouras.

This show is performed in Greek.

A new comedy full of melodies from the piano of Stavros Xiouras and hilarious jokes from Karagiozis of Makris for the whole family!

Vezyropoula returns from her studies abroad and having acquired a European musical education, she asks her father Pasha to organize a magnificent concert in Serai. An order is immediately issued to find a conductor of great scope together with a pianist, so that Veziropoulas’ wish can be fulfilled.

Karagiozis hearing this order immediately thinks that it is a unique opportunity to fill his permanently empty belly and also to feed his family. Will he be able to play the piano and get the job or will he fail?

Resumes

Kostas Makris – Karagiozopaichtis, painter

The puppeteer and painter Kostas Makris was born in Patras. He studied for many years with great karagiozo players, such as Giannaros, Sotiris Aspiotis, Mitsakis and Costaros. It has been artistically active for four decades, both in Patras and throughout Greece. In 1989, he received, with his artistic work, the “İpekçi” award in Istanbul, while his works are hosted in the “Musée de l’Homme” in Paris. In 2004, E.L.I.A. (Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive) chose Kostas Makris, to present his performances in Athens, in the context of the Cultural Olympiad.
Since then and until today, his collaboration with E.L.I.A. continues, as a person in charge in the field of Shadow Theater. The “Patra Cultural Capital 2006” organization collaborated with Kostas Makris in the section of the 10-day events dedicated to the Hellenic Shadow Theatre. Several works of the folk painter – karagiozopaichte Kostas Makris are housed in the Museum of Man (France), as well as in private collections abroad (Italy, USA and elsewhere).
Babis Makris – Shadow Theater Artist, Folk Painter, Director
Babis Makris was born in Patras, on December 8, 1995.
At the age of 5, he gave his first performance, lasting 45 minutes, at the Castle of Rio and as part of the “State for Children” events.
The following year, he “opened” the International Film Festival in Pyrgos with the saying of Karagiozis “We will eat, we will drink and we will sleep fasting”.

His love for shadow theater and painting was evident from a young age, when he began to design and construct figures and sets, starting with the original works of Kostas Makris, but also of all the great craftsmen of Popular Culture housed in the Makris Archive.
In 2012, he appeared as a guest for the first time at “Spatharia” with the original comedy “O Karagiozis and the aliens”, attracting impressive reviews
In the summer of 2017, he participated in the It’s Kale Festival of Ioannina, presenting the show “The Lake of Sighs”, in its natural setting, next to the Lake and the tomb of Ali Pasha.
This was followed by participation in many Shadow Theater Festivals throughout Greece.

Stavros Xiouras – piano, clarinet, saxophone

He was born in Patras and studied at the Department of Folk and Traditional Music of the Department of Artistic Studies of the University of Ioannina, specializing in the traditional clarinet.
He started learning music from an early age with the piano as his first instrument, then he came into contact with the traditional clarinet and saxophone.
At the same time he completed his studies in higher theoretical and
he holds degrees in Harmony, Counterpoint, Wind Instrument Arrangement and Fugue.
He has collaborated with renowned musicians at events and festivals as well as with the DIPETHE of Patras, in the performance “Theatrical Analogies-Scriptures of the Revolution”, directed by Dimitris Georgalas.

An indie / folk / neo-psychedelic pop night in the heart of Athens, on the last Thursday of June.

Model Spy return to PLYFA after their sweeping pure indie pop passage from the same stage last September, as part of the Agoraphobic Festival. It will be only their second appearance with this line-up, which includes members of My Wet Calvin, Spiral Trio and Metaman.

Bhukhurah, aka Christos Bekiris, a key member of CHICKN and Callas, has also participated in albums and bands as a guitarist (e.g. Prins Obi & the Dream Warriors), producer (The Model Spy), mixing engineer (in Vassilina) and DJ (Complex Shadow, ATH Kids). Very recently, he filed the wonderful “Hello My Name Is”, which is a fitting introduction to the multifaceted neo-psychedelic indie pop universe that treads with one foot, leaving the other foot in the air, ready to lean on anywhere from folk and blues to Motown and disco.

Jef Maarawi, the Greek-Brazilian troubadour next door, looks like the only solo project in town that can reunion with itself. His sound, familiar flawless indie/folk, which gets better with each release, matters little compared to the exuberant, disarming immediacy of a figure as enlightened as he is self-destructive, who could sing heavy folk or poke minimal techno and be just as riveting.

Timetable:
21.00 Jef Maarawi
21.50 Bhukhurah
22.50 Model Spy
*Door open at 20.30

The Model Spy photo: Philippos Margalias

a man can break

an original dramaturgy inspired by peter handke’s “kaspar” and heiner müller’s “horatio”

a performance of self-effacement

a coup breaks out in a peaceful city. in one night, three sisters are forced to change their way of thinking and speaking in order to survive in the new regime. in order to be liked they stop judging, they forget how to think, they give up their ideology. they become the same, clumsy and violent.

director’s note
can i maintain my ideology against survival instinct? do i have an ideology we tell a story of linguistic torture, in which three people are transformed to be useful, smoothed and blunted so as not to annoy. they undergo the invention of typography: their uniqueness is eliminated, they become interchangeable and replaceable. But were they ever truly unique? there is a mechanism that grinds and transmutes, a mechanism that I have unwittingly admired and served. and now i need to exorcise him

instagram

director bio:
Konstantinos Avramis was born in 1998 and grew up in Athens. studied philosophy (Ekpa) and is a final student of the postgraduate program comparative dramaturgy and performance research (Frankfurt/Helsinki). has been involved in playwriting (Kakogiannis Foundation, Marori Theater), acting (Attis Theater), and directing (Mikri Academy). as a dramatist he has worked in theaters in Greece and Finland and in short films, he is a founding member of the Protosi Theater Company. the text of his first complete work “holy agony. on the loom of Eva Palmer Sikelianou” is published by kappa publishing house

April 24-25, 2024
1, 8, 13-14, 20-21, 27-28 May 2024
3-4 June 2024

Extra performances from the 17th to the 19th of June at 21:00

This play is performed in Greek.

We wanted to talk
to create order.
I wish there was some beauty
in a world full of chaos, darkness and noise,
like the one who surrounds us.
Because there are things that happen
and things that happen.
And great loves always happen
and they never happen.

Abelard and Heloise is a play based on a medieval story that
it has taken on the characteristics of mythology. One of the most touching love stories took
flesh and bones in modern Greek drama by Yiannis Kalabrianos. A hymn
to eternal love, to elusive happiness, to the chaos of despair. Two lovers
they are sanctified, exalted in their effort to remain faithful to each other against each other
in the world, in the distance and in themselves. Two heavenly bodies, heading towards
their inevitable meeting and at the same time fatal collision, to seduce us as well
us in their unstoppable orbit. A deeply poetic work, written so unconventionally
as well as this love. A group of young actors come on stage as a dance, for
to tell this first love story as if it were the last. To continue
great loves to be sung till the world fades away.

Special thanks to Aggelos Triantafyllou for providing some of his music from the 2014 performance of the same name.

On April 28, shortly before the official release of her first full-length album “Life in Straight Lines” with music by Heroas from Pineline Music Lab, the 0-100 siren appears live at PLYFA’s Polychoros in a pre-release Live!
The already beloved artist from her first singles and EPs (Clause, Optiki Gonia, Taka-Touka, etc.), in a live performance for a limited number of spectators, gives us a taste of her new record shortly before its release.

Doors open: 20:00

“He grabbed the brushes and started painting.
He went for a spin,
but circles are complete, harmonious shapes.
What he feels, he knows neither what it is nor where it ends
and it is certainly not harmonious.
So press the circle with lines,
An endless straight line
a boring monotony
an inexplicable boredom..
Write the title , in small letters.
the page awoke to the cry of the words,
-stupid…!
he said,…
– and now?”

“Life in Straight Lines”
Athens, 2024
0-100 sirene/Hero
Pineline Music Lab

Archives: Events

MISS HELLAS DRAG PAGEANT

G.O.L.D. – GLORY OF LITTLE DREAMS

FANTASIST

BLUES MOON

TOGETHER

KARAGIOZIS PLAYS THE PIANO

SXEDONFEST

/oRt I.

ABELARD and HELOISE by Yiannis Kalavrianos

LIVE+ALBUM RELEASE PARTY