Part of: Hypnos Project

"The Dead Man" by Georges Bataille

Nova Melancholia

Dates

Prices

3 — 7 €

Location

Athens

Time & Date

Day
Time
Venue
Day
Saturday-Sunday
Time
21:00
Venue
Galaxia & Sfiggos str. (behind the Onassis Stegi building)

Information

Tickets

Presale
Full price: 7 €
Reduced, Friend, Small groups (5-9 people): 5 €
People with disabilities & Companions, Large groups (10+ people): 3 €
Tickets at the door: 7 € cash only (available 30’ before the show)

Age guidance

18+

An original rendition of Georges Bataille’s short piece of erotic prose "The Dead Man" staged by the contemporary theatre and performance collective Nova Melancholia in the context of the Hypnos Project.

Photo: Irini Aggelidi

Focus

‘When Edward fell back dead, an emptiness opened inside her, a prolonged shudder went through her, and bore her upward like an angel. Her bare breasts stiffened: an ominous shudder bore her into the fantastic church where exhaustion, silence and the feeling of the irremediable finished her.’

This is the first collaboration between Nova Melancholia collective with the Onassis Stegi-Athens, in the context of the "Hypnos Project". Nova Melancholia gives its own interpretation of Georges Bataille’s short piece of erotic prose "The Dead Man", written during World War II depicting the horrors of war.

Edward, Marie’s beloved, is dead. Marie spends a night of delirium – as if in a dream – and dies at dawn. The performance begins with the image of a woman lying naked on the cold floor. Next to her body begins a long line of excreta. At the back of the space, high up, a man is smoking silently in semi-darkness. Music is heard from a radio. Soldiers, ghosts, young men sexually aroused, and a deformed dwarf march around. Marie stares – her body apertures wide open. She surrenders herself to excess and ecstasy: naked, sweating from horror, sleeping, and dreaming. Her dream is ridiculous and indecent. The entire night Marie tries to reach death.

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    Photo: Irini Aggelidi

    Focus

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    Photo: Irini Aggelidi

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    Photo: Irini Aggelidi

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    Photo: Irini Aggelidi

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    Artwork: beetroot

Nova Melancholia uses the Greek translation of Georges Bataille’s "The Dead Man" by Aggeliki Petra for Agra Publications, Athens.

The performance includes a poem by Miltos Sachtouris ‘Maria’, set to music by Vassilis Noulas. Maria is part of Sachtouris’ collection of poems "The Spectres or Joy on the Other Street" (Athens: Kedros, 1958).

Dates
Saturday and Sunday: 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, and 29 May | 21:00

Credits

  • Director

    Vassilis Noulas

  • Visual Arts Curator

    Kostas Tzimoulis

  • Assistant Director

    Elisavet Xanthopoulou

  • Performers

    Vicky Kyriakoulakou, Alexia Sarantopoulou, Despoina Chatzipavlidou, Vassilis Noulas, Kostas Tzimoulis

Sponsoring / partnerships