FUTURE N.O.W. | Open Call for New Original Works at Upper Stage

FUTURE N.O.W. IN A FEW WORDS

The Onassis Stegi Upper Stage is looking for art proposals by artists who operate in the borders of theater, dance, music, performance, visual arts, and their hybrid combinations – regardless of their nationality and field of artistic practice.

We live in the explosive now of a world in constant transition: climate change and scenarios about the planet’s environmental destruction, violent movements of entire populations, violation of human rights, artificial intelligence and augmented reality, bioethics, big data, robotics, and post-human subjectivity, pandemic outbreaks. Against the backdrop of these socio-political facts, we are in search of new aesthetic forms, thematic axes, artworks, and artistic practices for a changing world, but also for a present that already looks like the future.

We are interested in talking about all the above, exploring shared forms and practices: How is dramaturgy organized today? How do we create theater in and through social media? What is the digital body and how can it be choreographed? What is the meaning of all these for the choreographer, the dramaturg, the director, the actor, the composer, the visual artist, the audience, or the performance itself?

The projects proposed can be found in different stages of the creative process – ranging from their inception to their tryout – as long as they comprise original creations and were never presented in Greece in the form outlined for the Future N.O.W. Open Call.

The proposals can pertain to a particular project and/or the artistic curation of a body of actions. Priority will be given to proposals submitted by younger generations makers, by artists who haven’t previously presented their work at the Onassis Stegi, and by experienced makers who wish to try a new artistic approach, in an area they haven’t explored to this day. In any case, this call is addressed to serious artists who don’t take themselves seriously.

The selected proposals are scheduled to be presented on the Onassis Stegi Upper Stage at various times during the 2020-21 Arts Season, with the possibility that some will be shifted to appear as part of the 2021-22 program instead. At this initial stage, proposals will be judged on their overall quality, and on how well they respond to the particular directions set out in the Open Call. If and when a proposal is selected, an in-person meeting will follow to further flesh out each element.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: April 20, 2020

GUIDELINES FOR THE SUBMISSION OF ORIGINAL PROJECTS

• The projects proposed must comprise original creations and texts, and should not have been presented before in Greece in the form outlined for the Future N.O.W. Open Call.
• Submitting a proposal does not guarantee the inclusion of the piece in the Onassis Stegi yearly program.
• The Onassis Stegi is not obliged to proceed into the justification of the rationale behind the project selection regarding the rejected proposals.
• Final Submission Deadline: April 20, 2020, 23:59

The Onassis Stegi Upper Stage is transformed into a workshop of imagination, where the future can be perceived as a thrilling “here-and-now.” It aspires to constitute a black box of transgressive artistic practices, idiosyncratic art forms and invigorating content, as the Onassis Stegi supports actions that transcend the signs of the era and the borders of the arts, challenge everything that is taken as a given, and trigger discussions about the important things that are not self-evident.

Onassis Stegi invites all the daring artists of today to talk about the challenges of tomorrow, with drama, humor, irony, suspense, or simply as they please, but always with a feeling of unrest. The artists will have the material, curatorial, scientific, and technical support necessary.