Onassis Stegi: Program 2019-2020

Onassis Stegi has some questions. It continues to play the role of an interested, adventurous figure (now almost 10 years old) who wants to discover the city, the world, life itself. It remains just as concerned, as sensitive as before, and just as Greek and international, too. Its events spark conversations, take positions on democracy, social justice, the environment, our digital present, our image-heavy reality, our bodies, and our imagined borders. It speaks of Athens, New York, Los Angeles, the Middle East, it travels all over the world, freeing the potential of Greek artists, and also presents world premiers and international co-productions in Greece. It poses questions and avoids didacticism. It revises, remembers, enjoys.

Social justice and democracy

The director Sarantos Georgios Zervoulakos, in his first collaboration with Stegi, produces Tom in Greece (Tom à la ferme), an anatomy of a closed society with present-day Greece as its backdrop (12-20.12.2019); Georgia Mavragani and Dimosthenis Papamarkos collaborate on Domestication, a contemporary parable about how human language domesticates and dominates reality (16-26.1.2020); Lenio Kaklea, in the dance performance Practical Encyclopedia, Deviations, uses the body to explore the contemporary social landscape of Europe (10-12-1.2020); Lloyd Newson (DV8) punches back at political correctness and the mainstream understanding of masculinity with Enter Achilles (19-25.2.2020). A series of musical productions, Happiness Machine, 24 hours of happiness with Klangforum Wien (1-2.11.2019), Songs of Rebellion by Brigitta Muntendorf and Michael Höppner (22.2.2020), and The City Talks Back from Theatrum Mundi (26-28.6.2020) engage issues of social justice, as the performers ask themselves how their art can contribute to conversations taking place more broadly in society. And of course I’m Positive, now in its second year, invites society to break the taboo of HIV (13-14.11.2019), while the conference Sex Education promotes sex education in schools, so young people can develop in an educational system that understands them (15.12.2019).

Borders

Stegi’s programming also speaks of democracy when it addresses the issue of borders and forced displacement, supporting the free movement of people, ideas, and cultures: Rabih Mroué and the Dance On Ensemble ask what a war leaves behind in Elephant, and how the human body rises up like a wall in You Should Have Seen Me Dancing Waltz (8-10.11.2019); Tania El Khoury speaks of the universal and timeless history of migration in Cultural Exchange Rate (6-8.3.2020); the festival Movement (1920-2020), which explores the migration of populations in the Mediterranean and beyond, from the interwar period to today, invites us to imagine our common future through an open world, beyond borders and constraints of race and gender (21-23.2.2020); in choreographing Congo (12-14.2.2020), which takes colonial violence as its starting point, Faustin Linyekula invites us on a pilgrimage through the byways of World History; and Raed Yassin, with his rock musical The Sea Between My Soul, which uses taxidermied animals as the performers, considers the ongoing history of deaths in the Mediterranean Sea (13-15.3.2020).

The environment

The environment cannot help but be at the forefront of Onassis Stegi’s awareness. And so Onassis Stegi has begun with its own operations: it established an extremely active volunteer Green Team which continually explores ways for Onassis Stegi to reduce its footprint at all levels, from energy consumption and the use of plastic to the productions themselves. Onassis Stegi also integrates productions into its artistic programming that promote the burning issue of environmental sustainability: this year’s Open Day will focus on the relations between music and environment in the contemporary era (Open Day: Musical Ecologies, 16.2.2020), while Onassis Stegi is also organizing an international interdisciplinary symposium (in collaboration with Julie’s Bicycle) about the cultural sector’s role in achieving sustainability, titled Culture and Sustainability (14-16.6.2020).

Digital

Onassis Stegi’s activities continue to describe our digital present, with Improtech ’19, the leading international gathering to analyses the relation between artificial intelligence and musical improvisation, in collaboration with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and IRCAM (26-29.9.2019). The festival will be followed by an innovative production, Atlas, in collaboration with Interfaces, the Centre Pompidou’s IRCAM, and ZKM: three cities, Athens, Paris, and Karlsruhe will converge with parallel concerts presenting the music of three composers (Dimitris Kamarotos, Carmine Emanuele Cella, Valerio Tricoli) and the video works of Marina Gioti, with audiovisual elements from the cities themselves (13.12.2019). With exhibits such as Kyriaki Goni’s Data Garden, where data and algorithms sprout in the center of Athens (26.3-8.4.2020), events such as HackAthens, as well as educational and artistic programs about VR (such as the Mixed Realities Masterclass, 20-21.11.2019), videogames, and the use of data within and about the city, Onassis Stegi decodes the digital urban archipelago. It travels through hybrid realities from the second decade of the 21st century, where the digital map has ceased to be a simple abstraction, becoming the place where we live, move, fall in love, exist.

The city

Onassis Stegi is Athenian (as demonstrated by events such as City Talks Back, Atlas, and Movement), yet it is also concerned with its broader geographical neighborhood: the Borderline Festival (9-12.4.2020) maintains strong bridges of communication with countries in the Middle East, while the Big Bang Festival 6 (16-17.5.2020) introduces children to music from the region.

History- New narratives

Onassis Stegi doesn’t rest on its laurels, but aspires to give voice to new narratives, new ways of approaching History: Stefan Kaegi of Rimini Protokoll boards the legendary yacht “Granma” to recreate the Cuban utopian vision and its disappointments, 63 years after the revolution, with Granma: Trombones from Havana (19-21.12.2019); Nikos Karathanos creates a new version of his by now legendary The Birds, in a collaboration between Greek and Brazilian performers (29-30.12.2019); Thanos Papaconstantinou leans in close over the Apocalypse of John to takes inspiration for a contemporary ritual (3-20.10.2019); Anestis Azas, working with Lena Kitsopoulou for the production Erotic Post Cards from Greece (18.3-5.4.2020), treats Greece as a national monument and national identity as a tourist product, while at this year’s Onassis Youth Festival (24-26.4.2020), which takes official History as its subject, young people will create a manifesto that may survive for 200 years. In music, the Athens State Orchestra, with works by Calliope Tsoupaki, Chaya Czernowin and Dimitrios Skyllas, give us tones that arise from the depths of musical time: Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Enlightenment (19.3.2020).

The body

In addition to our world, Onassis Stegi also turns toward human individuality, dissecting and celebrating the human body in a series of productions: Dimitris Papaioannou, who always praises the body in his performances, brings his most recent work to Onassis Stegi in a world premier (6-31.5.2020); Euripides Laskaridis, with his paradoxical and charming universe, introduces us with Elenit to a troupe of strange creatures (28.11-7.12.2019); RootlessRoot return to the Center Stage and pit their bodies against one of nature’s harshest materials, marble, with their new choreography Stones & Bones (2-5.4.2020); teenagers from Athens and Kalamata talk about the body and think with their hearts in Dancing to Connect (22.3.2020); while Patricia Apergi choreographs for “new” dancers age 65 and over, after seven years of classes and rehearsals in Onassis Stegi’s educational workshops, proving that the body can always dance, as long as it doesn’t have “even a single white hair in its heart” (12-16.6.2020).

Collaborations

Onassis Stegi continues to collaborate with organizations in Greece who share our passion for culture: with Panteion University (Bridge of Music over Syggrou, in its fifth year, 5-7.2.2020); with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens on Improtech ’19; with the Athens Conservatory on a tribute to George Apergis (6-29.3.2020); and again this year Dimitris Papadimitriou and the Hellenic Project present new musical productions: The Great Heretic [Part Two] (22-23.11.2019), Musical Correspondence: Yiorgos Sarandaris / Melissanthi (24.1.2020), Musical Fairytales for Carnival, for Narrator and Orchestra (8-9.2.2020), New symphonic work by Dimitris Papadimitriou (6-7.3.2020).

Onassis Stegi in the world

As every year, many of this year’s productions are world premieres and international co-productions with some of the world’s most important cultural organizations, including Sadler’s Wells Theatre (London), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), IRCAM-Centre Pompidou (Paris), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Festival d’Avignon (Avignon), Spielart (Munich), Theatre Vidy (Lausanne), and others, but the international impact doesn’t stop here. Onassis Stegi’s organized effort to promote contemporary Greek culture beyond the borders of Greece continues again this year, with the program “Extroversion,” promoting Greek artists in more than 60 productions outside of Greece. It collaborates with important theaters and festivals abroad, helping to organize Greek theater and dance productions (Cyprus, France, Ireland), while also supporting various festivals and organizations, from France to Chile and from Turkey to Holland. Clean City, the “theatrical documentary” performance of Anestis Azas and Prodromos Tsinikoris—the most well-traveled production in our modern theatrical history, which has continually been invited to the most important theaters and festivals over the last three and a half years—continues to “clean” prominent stages all over Europe. Nikos Karathanos’s The Birds is preparing for a production in Chile, at Santiago a Mil International Festival, the most important festival in Latin America, entirely updated, and accompanied by a film by Babis Makridis (The Birds or How to be One) inspired by the production, as well as an educational program. Divine Comedy by Argyro Chioti and the group Vasistas, having visited France, will be presented in Cyprus, while Hugo, a Utopia by Sophia Marathaki and the group ATONAl, after visiting Germany, will have its French premiere. Lena Kitsopoulou’s production Antigone, Lonely Planet continues its tour of stages abroad. In dance, Christos Papadopoulos’s Ion continues its impressive run in France, Switzerland, Holland, and Italy. Jenny Argyriou’s ANONYMOUS has had an important run, and continues with appearances in Belgium and France; EROTIKON / higher states, part 3 by Kyriakos Chatzioannou has been invited to prominent theaters; Katerina Andreou’s BSTRD has been touring tirelessly for the past two years; while several other performances—Cementary by Patricia Apergi and the Aerites dance company, Evangelia Kolyra’s Code Bend Time, and RootlessRoot’s Europium—continue to be invited to major festivals. “Extroversion” offers its active and steady support to a series of musical groups and artists, as well, including dissonArt ensemble, ARTéfacts ensemble, Socratis Sinopoulos Quartet, Medea Electronique, trio IAMA, Lenio Liatsou, the group GNOUS, and many others.

European Programs

Finally, Onassis Stegi participates in European networks with partners from countries all over the continent: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Estonia, the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Norway, Holland, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Finland. It represents Greece in the following networks: Interfaces, which treats new models and methods for developing a commons of contemporary music in Europe; European Media Art Platform (EMAP), through which eleven European entities support up-and-coming artists seeking to create new work; Big Bang, the music festival for youth and adventurous audience members; European Artificial Intelligence Lab, the European lab for art and artificial intelligence in a thoughtful society; Europe Beyond Access, which brings performing artists with disabilities to the forefront of the European cultural stage; RESHAPE (Reflect, SHAre, Practice, Experiment), which investigates how contemporary artistic experimentation can affect public policy; Moving Borders, which breaks down the borders that separate people from artistic production; Sounds Now, a network of individuals and organizations in contemporary sound art that aims to change the way we listen in Europe; Studiotopia, where art meets science; and Transmission (Greece – Norway), which examines what happens to contemporary music and sound art when it travels.

Program 2019-2020

Talks & Thoughts / Music

IMPROTECH

26-29 September 2019 | Onassis Stegi & NKUA

Theater

APOCALYPSE

THANOS PAPAKONSTANTINOU

3-6 October, 9-13 October & 16-20 October 2019 |

Main Stage | 20:30

Music

SOUNDSCAPES COMPOSITIONS

October 2019 — June 2020 | Thessaloniki

Music

ALLLOY

ΤΕΤΤΤΙΞ

18 & 19 October 2019 | Upper Stage | 21:00

Talks & Thoughts

TRANSEUROPE / EYESCULTURE

PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS

31 October-3 November, 3-6 November, 21-24 November & 27-29 November 2019 | Onassis Stegi & Onassis Library

Music

HAPPINESS MACHINE

24 HOURS OF BLISS WITH THE KLANGFORUM WIEN

1 & 2 November 2019 | Main Stage, Exhibition Hall -1 |

Dance

ELEPHANT

YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN ME DANCING WALTZ

RABIH MROUE & DANCE ON ENSEMBLE

8-10 November 2019 | Main Stage | 20:30

World premiere, International co-production (YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN ME DANCING WALTZ)

Talks & Thoughts

I'M POSITIVE

13 & 14 November 2019 | Main Stage & Upper Stage

Masterclass—Talk

MIXED REALITIES MASTERCLASS

20 & 21 November 2019 | Exhibition Hall -1

Music

DIMITRIS PAPADIMITRIOU, THE GREAT PROVOCATEUR [PART II]

THE HELLENIC PROJECT | CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AND POETRY CYCLE

22 & 23 November 2019 | Upper Stage | 21:00

Dance

ELENIT

Euripides Laskaridis

28 November-1 December & 4-7 December 2019 | Main Stage | 20:30

World premiere, International co-production

Theater

TOM IN GREECE (ΤΟΜ À LA FERME)

BY MICHEL MARC BOUCHARD

DIRECTION: SARANTOS GEORGIOS ZERVOULAKOS

12-15 December, 18-22 December & 25-29 December 2019 |

Upper Stage | 21:00

Music

ATLAS ATHENS

13 December 2019 | Main Stage | 20:30

International co-production

Talks & Thoughts

SEX EDUCATION

Conference

15 December 2019

Theater

GRANMA: TROMBONES FROM HAVANA

STEFAN KAEGI – RIMIΝI PROTOKOLL

19-21 December 2019 | Main Stage | 20:30

International co-production

Theater

BIRDS by Aristophanes

Direction Nikos Karathanos

29 & 30 December 2019 | Main Stage | 20:30

Cinema

The Birds or How To Be One

BABIS MAKRIDIS

2020

Dance

A PRACTICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, DETOURS

LENIO KAKLEA

10-12 January 2020 | Upper Stage | 21:00

International co-production

Theater

THE TAMING

GEORGIA MAVRAGANI & DEMOSTHENES PAPAMARKOS

16-19 & 22-26 January 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

Music

A MUSICAL CORRESPONDANCE

GIORGOS SARANTARIS AND MELISSANTHI

THE HELLENIC PROJECT | CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AND POETRY CYCLE

24 January 2020 | Upper Stage | 21:00

Music

MUSIC CONNECTS THE ONASSIS STEGI AND THE PANTEION UNIVERSITY

5-7 February 2020 | Panteion University

Wednesday 5 February | The adventures of the voice

Thursday 6 February | Keyboards Χ 5 (and one violin)

Friday 7 February | Winds Χ 5

Music

Open Day: Musical Ecologies

16 February 2020 | Multiple Stages

Music

MUSICAL FAIRYTALES FOR NARRATOR AND ORCHESTRA FOR CARNIVAL

THE HELLENIC PROJECT | REPERTOIRE CREATION CYCLE

8 & 9 February 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

CONGO

Faustin Linyekula

12-14 February 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

Music

ENTER ACHILLES

BALLET RAMBERT & SADLER’S WELLS — LLOYD NEWSON (DV8)

19-21 February & 23-25 February 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

World premiere, International co-production

Talks & Thoughts

MOVEMENT (1920—2020)

A festival beyond and between borders

21-23 February 2020 | Inside & Outside the Onassis Stegi

Music

SONGS OF REBELLION

Brigitta Muntendorf & Michael Höppner

29 February 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

Talks & Thoughts

INTERFACES

CULTURAL SYNERGIES, CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

5 & 6 March 2020 | Upper Stage & Foyer

Theater

CULTURAL EXCHANGE RATE

Tania El Khoury

6-8 March 2020 | Exhibition Hall -1

Music

A SYMPHONIC WORK BY DIMITRIS PAPADIMITRIOU

THE HELLENIC PROJECT

REPERTOIRE CREATION CYCLE

6 & 7 March 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

Music

THE SEA BETWEEN MY SOUL

RAED YASSIN

13-15 March 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

Theater

EROTIC POSTCARDS FROM GREECE

Anestis Azas

18-22 March, 25-29 March & 1-5 April 2020 | Upper Stage | 21:00

Music

ATHENS STATE ORCHESTRA AT STEGI

19 March 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

Dance

DANCING TO CONNECT

22 March 2020 | Main Stage

Music

TRIBUTE TO GEORGES APERGHIS

26-29 March 2020 | Athens Conservatoire

Interactive Installation

DATA GARDEN

Kyriaki Goni

26 March-8 April 2020 | Outside the Onassis Stegi

Dance

STONES & BONES

ROOTLESSROOT

1-5 April 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

Music

BORDERLINE

No borders, no boundaries, just sound

9-12 April 2020 | Inside & Outside the Onassis Stegi

Theater

ONASSIS YOUTH FESTIVAL 2020

24-26 April 2020 | Upper Stage

Dance

DIMITRIS PAPAIOANNOU

6-10 May, 13-17 May, 20-24 May & 27-31 May 2020 |

Main Stage | 20:30

World premiere, International co-production

Music Festival for children

BIG BANG FESTIVAL 6

16 & 17 May 2020 | Inside & Outside the Onassis Stegi

Talks & Thoughts

CULTURE AND SUSTAINABILITY

4 -6 June 2020 | Onassis Stegi

Dance

PERFORMANCE OF THE 65+ DANCING GROUP

12-16 June 2020 | Main Stage | 20:30

Music / Talks & Thoughts

THE CITY TALKS BACK

THEATRUM MUNDI

26-28 June 2020 | Outside the Onassis Stegi