The Art of War

This is Vicky Kyriakoulakou’s third time working with Onassis Stegi, having previously appeared in two works by the Nova Melancholia theater company directed by Vassilis Noulas. In May 2016, she performed in “The Dead Man” by Georges Bataille, presented as part of the HYPNOS Project, and in March 2017 appeared in “The Age of Innocence”, based on the novel “The Empress” by Doukas Kapantais. “The Art of War” is her Onassis Stegi directorial debut.

“The Art of War” by Sun Tzu is the earliest known treatise on military campaign strategy, while always respecting one’s opponent and the rules. Twenty-five centuries on, it is still being used to shape competent leaders and corporate executives, and to prepare for victories of all kinds, since it examines every aspect of warfare and how it can be applied to economic, political, military, social, commercial, and business contexts. Yet it is also a manual for self-awareness, and has been used as such in this performance.

Central to Vicky Kyriakoulakou’s working methods are polar opposites of scale – large and small – and how these can be applied to theater research. By examining every detail of an issue under a microscope and then through a telescope, she seeks out the dimension of time through her practice to make the passing minutes condense or dilate. Answers to the questions that interest her are drawn from the careful consideration of either philosophical texts or the common-sense wisdom of pop culture, two worlds that seem divergent in terms of verbal style but convergent in terms of objective. At the end of the day, common ground is found at the point where experience – in its generally accepted totality – draws close to the personal confessional style that permeates her presence on stage, where she hopes to induce a kind of collective spiritual elation in audiences, offering something that has an auxiliary effect on their therapeutic care, which is her ultimate aim.