Erotikon / Higher States, part 3

Philosophy has always had a tense relationship with the phenomenon of eros. On the one hand was its romantic conception, and on the other its philosophical dimension, as an ideal place of encounter with the Other. Plato’s Symposium emphasizes the deep “theatricality” of philosophical thought and even today can provide motivation for us to approach the ideal, cognitive dimension of eros.

Can we still speak of eros in this day and age? What possibilities or silent social resistances are expressed through the topic of eros? “Erotikon” imagines a broad spectrum of meanings for eros and love, presenting personal and intimate experiences, calling on memories, offering moments of consolation. Its creators imagine a sort of “Manifesto of eros in troubled times”—which, drawing on Roland Barthes’ Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse, uses bodies and music to construct a contemporary vocabulary of love: “heart,” “body,” “presence,” “dependence,” “insanity,” “jealousy,” “sex,” “suicide,” “depression,” “pain,” and so on.

Kiriakos Hadjiioannou has appeared at the Onassis Cultural Centre before, at the 2nd Young Choreographers Festival in 2015, with the work “Or Who Owns the World.” That performance was based on the 1932 German political film "Kuhle Wampe", with a screenplay by Bertolt Brecht, directed by Slatan Dudow and with music by Hanns Eisler. Both the theme of the film and its adaptation for stage treat pointed social problems and issues, trying to give a substantive answer to the question of how contemporary political action and thought take shape in artistic practice.