A Brief Guide for Prospective Tightrope Walkers

A modern, lyrical puppet theatre for all ages, with live music and a revolutionary mood; it’s this year’s original ‘away offsite performance produced by the Onassis Stegi for high-school students, teachers and other special audience groups, such as inmates, senior citizens, the chronically ill, people in rehabilitation centres, people with disabilities and everybody who is unable to access the arts easily, or is in remote areas.

We are all tightrope walkers, hence worthy of attaining freedom; this is what Jean Genet seems to be telling us in his famous lyrical manifesto “Le Funambule” (“The Tightrope Walker”, 1955), which has inspired this performance by the Ayusaya Puppet Theatre.

Puppet players, musicians and dancers give life to hand-made puppets. Drawing inspiration from Genet’s instructions to the tightrope walker Abdallah Bentaga, to whom he dedicated his allegorical essay, our troupe invites us to discover the craftsman-artist inside us all and respond to the challenges he sets us in the art of living.

The performance is based on the translation by Christoforos Liontakis of Jean Genet’s “Le Funambule – Le Condamné à mort” (“The Tightrope Walker – The Man Sentenced to Death”), Ekdoseis Eikostou Protou (21st c. Editions), Athens, 2016.