On Saturday, April 23rd at 21:00, a strange fair is coming at the Onassis Channel on YouTube. Are you ready for ENA ENA by Thanasis Deligiannis & I/O?

A provincial nightclub dating to another decade, with retsina and beer, plastic chairs and folk clarinets and electronic music. On Saturday, April 23rd at 21:00 a strange feast day celebration is coming at Onassis Channel on YouTube. Thanasis Deligiannis, part of a new generation of international Greek music artists, and Dutch company I/O are coming to Greece after their appearance in Utrecht at the major Gaudeamus festival to install the singular “ENA ENA” in the Onassis Stegi Exhibition Hall (-1). How many times have we gotten to go to Onassis Stegi and sit at tables for four, free to drink alcohol if we choose? "ENA ENA" is the name of an imaginary Greek rural nightclub. Literally meaning ‘one by one,’ it reminds us of the phrases ‘step by step,’ ‘bit by bit,’ ‘piece by piece.’

The performance of "ENA ENA" deals with surfaces of memories. A band, a singer, a waiter, and a security camera give life to the world of the performance, interacting with each other and the audience. The music is a microtonal amalgam of the Greek 70s to 90s culture of ‘klarina,’ blended with improvised parts, electronic music, and field recordings, while making use of the heavily "amplified" aesthetics of that era; an uncanny ‘panegyri,’ the Greek traditional party at the countryside.

Thanasis Deligiannis, known for his collaborations with such music ensembles as AskoSchönberg, the Nieuw Ensemble, and the Atlas Ensemble, and with such directors as Dimitris Papaioannou (“Since She”), notes: “Triggered by a childhood memory and spurred by the experience of a festivity cut unexpectedly short, the space and occasion that is a feast day celebration form the core around which many of my questions await an answer. Taking my own personal experiences and their audial impressions as a starting point, I was drawn to feast day celebrations of the 1980s. During the course of my research, I studied a wide range of sound recordings, photographs, and event videos to discover a rich world of variations. The outdoor feast day celebration and its transferal to indoor city venues – “klarina” (folk clarinet) nightclubs – to a large extent created a framework within which traditional Greek music took new paths. Gradually assimilating the possibilities of amplification brought on by electric power, a new aesthetic was formulated that affected how this music was both performed and received. A hybrid form since the start, I believe that it constitutes – right down until today – an overlooked and misunderstood part of the Greek folk art live performance tradition.”

Performance: Thanasis Deligiannis
Vocals: Natasa Tsakiridou
Violin: George Dumitriu
Keyboards: Kaja Draksler
Drums: Onno Govaert
Audio Engineer: Kostas Chaikalis
Stage Direction & Sound Design: Thanasis Deligiannis
Set & Light Design: Roelof Pothuis
Dramaturgy: Yannis Michalopoulos
Assistant Director & Production: Danai Belosinof
Costume Design: Vasiliki Sourri
Technical Director & Light Technician: Konstantinos Margkas
Creative Coder: David Jonas
Project Development: Frank van der Weij
Video Direction & Editing: Elia Kalogianni & Yorgos Kyvernitis

Camera: Elia Kalogianni, Yorgos Kyvernitis, Thanos Tsantas
Sound Design & Mixing: Kostas Chaikalis, Studio Praxis
Director Technician & Light Technician: Konstantinos Margkas
Creative Coder: David Jonas
Project Development: Frank van der Weij

Special Thanks: Fotini Papachristopoulou, Stamatis Pasopoulos, Clare Gallagher, Euripides Laskaridis, Andriana Minou, Artemis Ignatidou, Trevor Grahl, Marko Ivic, Efthimis Theou, Stephanos Droussiotis, Costas Parissis

The remote editing & review of this video was possible with the kind support of Source Elements.

ENA ENA has been created and produced by I/O and co-produced by the Onassis Stegi and Gaudeamus.