2024

Does it bite?

Μία παράσταση για τα ζώα

 

Σύλληψη/Σκηνοθεσία
Όλγα Ποζέλη

Κείμενα
Μαρία Γουλή & κείμενα που προέκυψαν από την τεχνική του devised theatre

Σκηνικός χώρος
Κωστής Δάβαρης

Εικονικό περιβάλλον
Μάνθος Σαντοριναίος - Fournos Lab

Φωτισμοί
Αποστόλης Τσατσάκος

Κίνηση
Κατερίνα Σκιαδά

Διδασκαλία κρουστών
Γιώργος Κασαβέτης

Βοηθός σκηνοθέτη
Kamila Jumadilova

Βοηθός παραγωγής
Μάιρα Ξύδη


Παίζουν
Γιώργος Ντούσης
Όλγα Ποζέλη
Χάρης Ηλιάδης


Φωτογραφίες
Αναστάσης Παπαγγελής

Επικοινωνία
Τζίνα Φουντουλάκη


Η παράσταση Δαγκώνει; πραγματοποιείται με την οικονομική υποστήριξη του Υπουργείου Πολιτισμού

Η ΝΟΗΤΗ ΓΡΑΜΜΗ ανήκει στο δίκτυο ATHENS CULTURE NET.

Ζώα συντροφιάς ή άγρια, ελεύθερα ή εμπορεύσιμα, στην δική μας «αφήγηση» μοιράζονται ενεργά τον κόσμο μαζί μας.

Στην παράσταση ξεδιπλώνονται πολλές ιστορίες θραυσματικά. Άλλες όμορφες, άλλες ενοχλητικές, ίσως πολιτικά μη ορθές, πολλές φορές αστείες, στοχαστικές, ασυνήθιστες.

Ζώα και άνθρωποι δρουν και απουσιάζουν, αλληλεπιδρούν και εναλλάσσονται στο αστικό μας τοπίο. Λουριά που δεν βλέπουμε τί έχουν δεμένο στην άλλη τους άκρη, κλουβιά που αιχμαλωτίζουν, ρυθμικές τελετουργίες, μνήμες μιας άλλης ζωής, και ίχνη ζώων παντού…

Σκοπός μας δεν είναι να «τακτοποιήσουμε τα πράγματα».

Δαγκώνει; Ποιος;

FOURNOS THEATRE
168 Mavromihali Str., Athens GR
+30 210 6460748
Σάββατο στις 21:00 & Κυριακή στις 20:00
Από τις 30 Μαρτίου έως τις 26 Μαΐου

Τιμές εισιτηρίων: 15 ευρώ (γενική είσοδος), 10 ευρώ (φοιτητικό, ατέλειες ηθοποιών, άνεργοι)

Εισιτήρια: More.com

2022

Confess

performance

 

Κείμενα
Δεν Δύναμαι του Σάκη Σερέφα
Το Σπίτι του Ανδρέα Φλουράκη
Όλα είναι μια χορογραφία της Μαρίας Γουλή
και κείμενα που προέκυψαν από την τεχνική του devised theatre

Σύλληψη/Σκηνοθεσία
Όλγα Ποζέλη

Συνεργάτης σκηνοθέτης
Τάσος Καρακύκλας

Σκηνικός χώρος
Κωστής Δάβαρης

Φωτισμοί
Βασίλης Κλωτσοτήρας

Κίνηση
Κατερίνα Σκιαδά

Βοηθός σκηνοθέτη
Ιωάννα Βασιλάκη


Παίζουν
Καλλιρρόη Μυριαγκού
Σοφία Λιάκου
Όλγα Ποζέλη
Κωσταντής Μιζάρας
Βασίλης Καζής


Η ΝΟΗΤΗ ΓΡΑΜΜΗ επιχορηγήθηκε για την θεατρική περίοδο 2021-22 από το

Η ΝΟΗΤΗ ΓΡΑΜΜΗ ανήκει στο δίκτυο ATHENS CULTURE NET.

«Ο Δυτικός άνθρωπος έχει γίνει ένα ζώο εξομολογητικό»
Michel Foucault

Η επιθυμία μας να αποκαλύψουμε την "αλήθεια", είναι μία από τις κυρίαρχες ανάγκες της εποχής μας. Αρκεί να ρίξει κανείς μια ματιά στις μυριάδες των απομνημονευμάτων στα ράφια των βιβλιοπωλείων ή να παρατηρήσει τη μετάβαση από την μυθοπλασία στα reality shows στην τηλεόραση.

Συνεχώς ομολογούμε την αλήθεια σε θεραπευτές, στην Αστυνομία, στις τηλεοπτικές κάμερες, σε ομάδες υποστήριξης, σε στενούς φίλους, σε δασκάλους, σε συζύγους, σε παντελώς αγνώστους. Ομολογούμε αμαρτίες, σκέψεις, επιθυμίες, ασθένειες, προβλήματα, έρωτες ακόμη και εγκλήματα. Εξομολογούμαστε, με κάθε λεπτομέρεια, ό,τι είναι απίστευτα δύσκολο να ειπωθεί.

Εμείς σας καλούμε στον φιλόξενο χώρο ενός σπιτιού και σας προκαλούμε ν’ ακούσετε την εξομολόγηση των πέντε ηθοποιών. Οι θεατές – ένας, δύο, τρεις το πολύ, γιατί η εξομολόγηση είναι μία πολύ ιδιωτική εμπειρία – θα μπαίνουν διαδοχικά στα πέντε δωμάτια και θα γίνονται οι αποδέκτες της ακατάσχετης επιθυμίας των ηθοποιών να ομολογήσουν κάτι.

Σας θέλουμε κοντά, να σας κοιτάμε στα μάτια και να ορίσουμε μαζί έναν νέο συσχετισμό ανάμεσα σε performers και θεατές. Εμείς κι εσείς, σε μία τετ α τετ συνάντηση.

1927 art space
35 Kispelis str., Athens 113 61
Κάθε Σάββατο στις 20:00 & 21:30 και Κυριακή στις 19:30 & 21:00
Από τις 30 Απριλίου μέχρι τις 29 Μαΐου

Τιμές εισιτηρίων: 15 ευρώ (γενική είσοδος), 10 ευρώ (φοιτητικό, ατέλειες ηθοποιών, άνεργοι)

Εξαιτίας της ιδιαιτερότητας της performance – τρεις θεατές με έναν ηθοποιό σε κάθε δωμάτιο – είναι απαραίτητη η κράτηση εισιτηρίων στο Viva.gr
https://www.viva.gr/tickets/theater/confess/exomologitheite/

Ο χώρος 1927 art space δεν διαθέτει ασανσέρ

2021-22

Memory Kaput

performance

 

Text by
Sakis Serefas

Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Music by
George Casavetis

Movement by
Martha Kloukina

Set design by
Kostis Davaris


Cast
Isabella Kyriazi
George Doussis
Alexander Zachareas
Olga Pozeli


Assistant director
Christina Bellou

Photos
Giannis Mathioudakis

PR
Gina Foundoulaki


Funded by

NOITI GRAMMI theatre group is a member of ATHENS CULTURE NET.

Observe around you randomly, amateurishly, superficially…
You're not a professional flaneur.
Nor a professional city dweller.
Not even a professional human being.
You're a human being by hobby. You're your hobby. Do you get it?
Well, now put sound in the pictures, the city is not mute.
Listen.
Scattered words uttered by passers-by.
Words astray.
Words that form a chaotic text.
The text of your city.
ΜLearn to listen to it.
It's addressed to you.
It's composed for you.

Streets, parks, vacant lots, apartments, entrances of apartment buildings, compose the setting in which human stories, that were forgotten by the collective memory, took place. Small individual stories that also have their place in the great narrative of cities.

The performance MEMORY KAPUT explores how a city flaneur - through the fragmentary observation of urban space, its images and sounds - composes a personal relationship with it.

ALKMINI THEATRE
8-12 Alkminis str., 118 54 Athens
+30 210 34 28 650
Saturday & Sunday at 21:30
15€ (general admission), 10€ (students, theatre artists, unemployed)

2021

The Prank Calls

 

Written by
Maria Gouli

Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Set design by
Kostis Davaris

Lighting design by
Apostolis Tsatsakos

Assistant Director
Marios Sougioutzoglou


Cast
Goni Louka
Olga Pozeli


Funded by

Two women, locked in a room, keep making prank calls, nonstop. Their speech delusional, comic, feministic, linguistically imaginative and intellectually paradoxical. The recipients of the calls are mostly middle-class men, who are confronted by two female vigilantes, two women who invade their lives, demanding compliance.

Their pranks are a revolutionary act against a society that stays settled in its petty habits.

FOURNOS THEATRE
168 Mavromihali Str., Athens GR
+30 210 6460748
25 September - 31 October 2021, Saturday & Sunday at 21:15

2019

Ex Libris

a promenade performance

 

Devised & Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Texts
Andreas Staikos
Andreas Flourakis
Akis Dimou
Glykeria Basdeki
Sofia Kapsourou
Maria Gouli
Theoni Dede

Art direction
Kostis Davaris

Production manager
Myrto Lazaridou

Assistant to the director
Marios Sougioutzoglou


Cast
Goni Louka
Isabella Louisa Kyriazi
Stevi Fortoma
Grigoris Pimenidis
Constatis Mizaras
Marios Sougioutzoglou

and the musician Vicky Sachpazi


Funded by

Books tell stories that give meaning to the complexity and the chaotic side of life. Dense, while often elliptical, they draw our attention to situations that would, normally, pass unnoticed or seem to be immaterial in the context of everyday life. The stories reveal those hidden synapses that we all have in common. What the writer chooses to say, and the way they say it, shows us where to look and helps us experience emotions.
Reading stories is a personal relationship between a person and a book. It requires some private space, even makeshift, a choice and a commitment.
In our promenade performance the spectator becomes a flaneur on the roads of a library, a player in a treasure hunt game, in which the book is the treasure.

The installations will be scattered around and the spectators will come across them while following their course. These will be small rituals about private and public reading and will invite the spectators to:

  • tell their own stories, alone, in front of a microphone in order to inspire the writers,
  • follow the stories of books that were forgotten, misplaced or never read,
  • synaesthetically access the stories through the senses of smell, taste and hearing,
  • set up camp by building their own reading «nest»,
  • read, write and exchange secret billets-doux and messages, choose random narrative extracts from books and witness them being brought to life by the performers,
  • watch the traces of former use on books transform into the personal stories of the people who owned them,
  • respond to the arguments of censors,
  • bring with them their favourite books and listen to their ‘music’ played by the performers,
  • keep silent, whisper or cough in a library reading room,
  • νoverhear the librarians talk about libraries, books and readers,
  • listen to a book speak about its binding, its pages and the history unfolding therein,
  • and reflect upon how the stories begin and end, before the first word and after the final full-stop.

2018-19

Karaoke Night

performance

 

Devised & Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Texts
Olga Pozeli & Giorgos Tzedopoulos

Video editing
Spyros Tsiftsis

Art direction
Kostis Davaris

Lighting design
Apostolis Tsatsakos

Assistant to the director
Marianna Proumba

Audio mixing & mastering
Christos Tsamardas

Illustrations | Poster design
Elias Tambakeas


Cast
Olga Pozeli
Lambros Papageorgiou


Funded by

We all sing.
We sing more often than we remember.
Along with the singer on the radio,
behind the wheel,
in the shower,
holding a brush for a microphone, in front of the mirror,
on our way to the supermarket on a Saturday morning,
over pots and pans,
in the elevator on our way to the office.

We sometimes sing consciously. When something happens and the song brings back memories, images, words. What we have lived and said, what we’ve seen and heard. And as we sing along, it's like reclaiming all these memories again, only this time more consciously, more decisively.

Because you cannot fool songs. Memories, you change, as time goes by. You correct them, you add to them; others, as psychologists say, you invent. But songs have a life of their own. And what they carry with them comes back in a flash, before you can process it and censor it.

So along with the songs, the show is made of all the things that songs bring with them: moments from back then, pictures, conversations, as we understand them in the now: full of tenderness, shame, laughter or anger. Not just to remember the past, not to condemn it or beautify it, but to win it back, all together and everyone on his/her own. By singing it.

FOURNOS THEATRE
168 Mavromihali Str., Athens GR
+30 210 6460748
Saturday & Sunday at 21:15
12€ (general admission), 10€ (groups of 6 or more people), 5€ (unemployed)

2016-17

Women and Clothes

performance

 

Devised & Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Texts by
Olga Pozeli & the Group

Sets by
Kostis Davaris

Costumes by
Kostis Davaris & the Group

Music supervision & Movement by
Olga Pozeli

Lighting design by
Apostolis Tsatsakos

Assistants to the director
Lina Papanikolaou
Alexandra Assantourian
Teresa Vonatsou

Assistants to the scenographer
Eleftheria Araouzou
Myrto Kokkinou

Production assistant
Christina Kalpogiannaki

Trailer
Spyros Tsiftsis

Photos by
Stelios Aggelidis
Spyros Tsiftsis


Cast
Isabella Louisa Kyriazi
Sofia Liakou
Olga Pozeli
(November 2017 - January 2018)

Vasia Lakoumenta
Sofia Liakou
Olga Pozeli
(December 2016 - February 2017)


Media sponsors
ert-logo
sokolis-logo

Do you remember the first time you were truly aware of what you were wearing?
Tell us about a piece of clothing in your closet that you keep but never wear.
If you had to throw all of your clothes away but only keep one piece, what would that be?
When you look at yourself in the mirror, before going out, what do you see? What is this “other person” like?
What would you say is “you” and what “not you”?

The stories that we tell in our performance, deal with clothes as a sign of intimacy, as a scar made by emotions, as a trace of memory. The clothes as tools for transformation. As a declaration of triumph.

It's as if there are 328 women talking... Because our material was rich and heterogeneous: we handed out questionnaires, we interviewed people, we read theses and poems, overheard conversations, browsed on the internet and the social media, flipped through magazines, listened to songs, and... and... and...

The relationship women have with their clothes is a very delicate relationship, at times ambiguous and quite often extremely revealing. It is a multi-faceted relationship: sometimes obvious and interpretable, sometimes obscure and quite difficult to figure out.

The fact is, that our sartorial choices define us: racially, ethnically, socially, morally, politically, professionally, personally, sexually. They give us prestige, or not, they reflect our ideology, they give a hint about our jobs, they express our sexuality, they reveal our ethics, they indicate where we belong to or they differentiate us...

In our show at some point, we left the clothes aside and we listened to them. Because clothes tell stories.

FOURNOS THEATRE
168 Mavromihali Str., Athens GR
+30 210 6460748
Saturday & Sunday at 21:15
12€ (general admission), 10€ (groups of 6 or more people), 5€ (unemployed)

2013-14

I remember

performance/installation

 

By and With
Olga Pozeli

Art direction
Kostis Davaris

Sound design
Studio Φabrika | Nassos Sopilis

Lighting design
Panagiotis Manoussis

Collaboration
Dimitrios Vergados


Produced by
NOITI GRAMMI Theatre Group
Fundamental Monodrama Festival of Luxembourg

I remember the first time I saw my mum cry.
I remember looking for chewing gums under the desk at school.
I remember that little jerk you give just before you fall asleep. Like falling.
I remember one of my favourite dreams: I could fly.

You come in. You see mattresses on the floor. You lie on them. You close your eyes. A voice starts to speak. Memories. Lots of them.

Fantasies. Facts. Trivia. Snippets. Stray thoughts. Do’s and Don’ts. Long forgotten.
Familiar sounds. Songs stuck in your head. Smells.

An installation/performance, inspired by Joe Brainard's book on his memories of growing up. A piece/poem that inspired many others, such as writer Georges Perec and poet Kenneth Koch, who wittingly used I remember in his attempt to teach children how to write poetry.

49th DIMITRIA
Sfageia Thessalonikis
4 & 5 October 2014
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE FESTIVAL 2016
Hannoi, Vietnam
17 November 2016

2012-13

When the red Toyota went off the road and sank in black water

 

With and by
Olga Pozeli


Texts by
Dimitrios Vergados
Olga Pozeli

Lighting design by
Panagiotis Manousis

Music supervision by
Nikos Vittis
Olga Pozeli

Assistants to the director
Dimitros Vergados
Katerina Konstantopoulou

Production assistant
Jenny Grima

Voice over
Alexis Alatsis

The rented Toyota, driven with such impatient exuberance by the Senator was speeding along the unpaved unnamed road, taking the turns in giddy skidding slides, and then, with no warning, somehow the car had gone off the road and had overturned in black rushing water, listing to its passenger's side, rapidly sinking.
"Am I going to die? Like this?"

A politician from a wealthy family with a long history in politics, a big fortune and a lot of charm, meets, at a party, a young woman who works as a journalist. A graduate in political sciences from a well known university, she is very interested in politics. During the party, after several drinks and a solitary walk on the beach, the politician expresses his interest in the woman. Towards the end of the evening they leave the party together. While driving his car, the politician loses control and the car falls into a dark swamp and sinks into black water. He manages to escape the sinking vehicle, leaving the woman to drown.

We follow the story through her eyes - an impressionistic jumble of memories and voices from the past intersected by images from the day of her death. These images, stretched in time and constantly repeated, try to give an explanation for the tragic accident that leads to her slow and agonizing death.

A performance on the corruption of power, the meaning of atonement, as well as on our attitude towards the absurdity of a violent and unjust death.

GLOBAL FORUM OF THE ARTS – TO THE STARS
Varna, Bulgaria
1-7 August 2012
BETWEEN THE SEAS FESTIVAL
New York, USA
20-26 August 2012
ATSPINDYS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF MONOPERFOR­MANCES
Visaginas, Lithuania
10-13 October 2012
THESPIS INTERNATIONAL MONODRAMA FESTIVAL
Kiel, Germany
9-16 September 2012
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF MONOPERFOR­MANCES VIDLUNNJA
Kiev, Ukraine
12-17 July 2013
FOURNOS THEATRE
168 Mavromihali Str., Athens GR
+30 210 6460748
Dec 2012 - Feb 2013

2010-11

Don't judge a man by his tail

devised theatre

 

Direction | Dramaturgy
Olga Pozeli

Texts
George Tzedopoulos
Olga Pozeli

Sets | Costumes 
Kostis Davaris

Lighting
Katerina Maragoudaki

Songs
Nikos Vittis
Nassos Sopilis

Video
Alexandros Mistriotis

Music supervision | Movement
Olga Pozeli

Assistant to the director
Katerina Konstantopoulou


Cast
Spiros Perdiou
Olga Pozeli
Stevi Fortoma
Sotiris Karkalemis
(April - May 2010)

Olga Pozeli
Giorgos Doussis
Stevi Fortoma
Sotiris Karkalemis
(October 2010 - January 2011)


Funded by
The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports


Media sponsors
elculture-logo
ianos-logo
kosmos-logo

We have created a performance for those who cannot be part of a community, in compliance with the conventional norms and rules. For people who are in a league of their own and strive to fit in, while refusing to forsake their personality. Our inspiration is 10 Albums, a work by conceptual artist Ilya Kabakov.

Ilya Kabakov was born in 1933 in the Soviet Union. His early works explore such issues as the combination of words and images and the relationship between the object and its meaning. Kabakov has also developed a special interest in the seemingly ordinary and banal.

In the 1970s he created a series of Albums (1972-5). Each album has as its subject an extremely sui generis character. These unbound books symbolically recount - through texts and drawings – the fictional story of a group of artists who live on the fringes of society and whose work is not valued or recognized. The images symbolize the vision of each character-artist. Many have as subtitles comments made by his friends and relatives. The final image in each album is a blank page that announces the character’s death and each of them ends with some general comments on the whole of his wok, made by fictional commentators that suppose to represent the educated class, who are after all the ones that document and manage the “legacy” of the artist.

The personal visions of the central characters of these albums, to a great extent, refer to the history of the avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. Moreover, the comments of intruders indicate the different levels of misinterpretation and misunderstanding that any work of art inevitably is exposed to. These albums, nevertheless, are uniquely poetic, full of passion and executed with impressive precision and care.

This is the way Kabakov chose to balance the lack of a real audience for his artistic creation, however this imaginary audience as presented in the albums show no deeper understanding of art. Their interpretations can multiply infinitely and the meaning of the work is lost in this eternal process. Strangely this boosts the artist optimism rather than making him feel pessimistic. The artist seeks the spectator’s attention, though not his interpretative control. Kabakov by incorporating into the work the comments that this may generate enables it to attract the spectator’s attention without being left to its mercy.

In the albums Kabakov dealt with this mixture of hope and fear while awaiting the new viewer, the future “environment”, the acceptance by a stranger. This anticipation creates hope: “the next perspective viewer may understand the work better than his contemporaries”… He may bring the artist the attention, love and admiration his immediate environment does not offer. Along with hope there is fear that this new viewer probably does not understand the work and considers it unnecessary, and only of possible sentimental value to the artist and his immediate circle.

Kabakov’s works operate simultaneously on multiple levels: they mislead our emotions while at the same time torment our intelligence, entertain us, control us and enchant us. Our performance works on all these levels by inviting the audience to actively be a witness, sometimes as the protagonist, sometimes as an accomplice or as a commentator of the theatrical act and sometimes as a mere spectator, something that the artist himself seeks to achieve through his work.

Additionally we have used some of Tim Burton's poems (The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories) as lyrics for musical interludes.

FOURNOS THEATRE
168 Mavromihali Str., Athens GR
+30 210 6460748
April - May 2010 | Oct 2010 - Jan 2011
FADJR INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL
Tehran, Iran
14-15 February 2011

2008-09

Never take the stairs

devised theatre

 

Direction | Dramaturgy
Olga Pozeli

Texts
George Tzedopoulos

Set | Costumes 
Kostis Davaris

Lighting
Panagiotis Plaskasovitis

Music supervision | Movement
Olga Pozeli

Assistants to the director
Marilena Ioannou
Georgia Natsoulidou

Photos by
Giannis Tsolkas


Cast
Dimitrios Vergados
Giorgos Kritos
Lambros Papageorgiou
Olga Pozeli
Stevi Fortoma


Co-produced by 
NOITI GRAMMI Theatre Group
ARGO Cultural Company


Funded by
The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports


Supported by 
The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation (Alpha Bank)


Media sponsors
elculture-logo
ianos-logo
kosmos-logo
highlights-logo
mixtape-logo

A man disappears for no apparent reason somewhere between the 24th and 26th floor of a building. A strange detective, who is obsessed with coincidences and undertakes only “weird” cases, begins an investigation that would lead to unexpected encounters. There, on the staircase of the building, he will meet apart from tenants, figures from the past, the future and perhaps from a parallel present.

It is exactly as it happens in our dreams, where time does not depend on the clock and no longer has the linear form of the motion of the elevator, but resembles the shape of a spiral staircase.

As the little girl in our story says.

We went up and down the stairs more than once. Reacting to two short stories by Haruki Murakami, we listened to physicists, psychologists and poets talking about time and coincidences. But we mostly talked with friends, relatives, colleagues and with each other. We entered more personal territories, we were surprised by what we remembered and remembered what surprised us. We stumbled across the spoonerisms and blunders that we would love to forget, the moments when we accidentally or miraculously received a gift or got a fright.

We came to the conclusion that people are thirsty for gifts and frights. Thirsty for stories that do not have a linear development, stories which do not necessarily explain everything and stories that leave a “question mark” lingering on...

Likewise, we do not take a final stance. Having faith in our instinct, we are not afraid of contradictions. We lay heterogeneous things side by side and we let ourselves trust the body, the image and the rhythm. In the end, we may find something that looks like an elephant or an umbrella. But, when we find it, we will feel certain that this is what we have been looking for, all along.

ARGO STUDIO THEATRE
15 Elefsinion Str., Athens GR
+30 210 5201684-5
19 Dec 2008 - 22 Feb 2009

2007

Is everything I have ever forgotten as big as a house?

devised theatre

 

Direction | Dramaturgy
Olga Pozeli

Set | Costumes 
Kostis Davaris

Music composition
Dimitris Fritzalas

Lighting design
Katerina Maragoudaki

Assistants to the director
Irini Aggelidou
Irini Vlachou
Eleana Georgiadou


Cast
Michalis Kilakos
Goni Louka
Kostas Papakonstantinou
Olga Pozeli
(May 2007)

Kiriaki Karalouka
George Doussis
Olga Pozeli
Pavlos Stavropoulos
Guest:
Kallirroe Myriagou
(October - December 2007)


Funded by
The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports


Supported by
The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation (Alpha Bank)
ianos-logo Publications
ACRON Studio


Media sponsors
skai-logo
skaitv-logo

Lexotanil or Prozac?
Chinese or French cuisine?
Stop or Durex?
Breast or drumstick?
Bush or Bin Laden?
Guitarist or drummer?
The beach or the mountain?
Cinderella or Snowhite?

The performance Is everything I have ever forgotten as big as a house? is a barrage of questions that refer to the human condition. They are questions that we all inevitably ask ourselves at some point in our lives. They are "major" and "minor" questions, of a philosophical nature or not. They are questions that talk about love, fear, loneliness, the need to belong, the thirst for power, and about how people exploit each other.

We draw our inspiration from an installation by Peter Fischli and David Weiss entitled "Questions". Then, quite naturally, other texts on the same topic came our way. Thus, we met John Cage, Ben Vautier and Forced Entertainment and we felt that we all have something in common: the need to ask questions and seek answers:

► Is happiness looking for me in the wrong place?
► Shall I move to another city and rent a house under a false name?
► Shall I remove the exhaust pipe and drive around the neighborhood at night?
► Is my body a hotel?
► Are my lies a masterpiece of the avant-garde?

During the rehearsals we welcomed everything that was personal or hidden away. There were questions that made us laugh and others that made us cry. We posed questions that no one was able to answer and questions that concealed something other than the obvious. We watched the questions sing and dance, fall and rise. We shut each other's mouth when it came to questions that we could not stand to hear. We sat in silence and in the dark trying to retrieve those questions that spring up from nowhere just before we fall asleep. We let these questions tell their stories with music and humor.

ARGO STUDIO THEATRE
15 Elefsinion Str., Athens GR
+30 210 5201684-5
May 2007 | October - December 2007

2004

The bird of pleasure

Ispired by Peter Carey's Exotic Pleasures

 

Devised & Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Sets & Costumes by
Kostis Davaris

Lighting design by
Katerina Maragoudaki

Music supervision by
Eleftheria Emmanouil

Movement by
Ermis Malkotsis

Video art
Giorgos Gkikapepas

Puppets
Manos Pontikakis

Assistant to the director | Clown coaching
Maria Pavlidi


Cast
Apostolos Pelekanos
Olga Pozeli
Christos Sapountzis

Voice over
Nikos Pantelidis


Funded by
The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports

In a future where space travel results in an alien bird being adopted by a destitute couple. The bird gives amazing pleasure to whoever strokes it, so naturally they make money from it. However, like the characters, we realize that however pretty it looks, something is off.
It is the story of a couple who desire to be other than they are and who are mortally afraid of their capacity both to change and to be stationary...

The Bird of Pleasure (Exotic Pleasures) is a sci-fi story in Peter Carey’s collection of stories Fat Men in History.

"...she knew, before he arrived at the car, exactly what his eyes would look like. She had seen those eyes more and more recently, like doors to comfortable and familiar rooms that suddenly open to reveal lift wells full of broken cables..."

Our performance, using elements of magic realism and physical theatre, tries to observe what happens when a new element is introduced into society, and explore its consequences on ordinary people.

EPI KOLONO THEATRE
12 Nafpliou Str., Athens GR
+30 210 5178067
April - June 2004

2003

Kvetch

by Steven Berkoff

 

Translated by
Christina Bambou-Pagoureli

Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Sets by
Kostis Davaris

Costumes by
Maria Konomi

Music supervision by
Eleftheria Emmanouil

Lighting design by
Katerina Maragoudaki

Puppets by
Manos Pontikakis

Photos by
Haris Kakarouhas


Cast
Petros Alatzas
Kostas Apostolakis
Anneta Kortsaridou
Vaggelis Liodakis
Alexia Bouloukou


Funded by
The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports
The Manpower Employment Organization of Greece


Supported by
The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation of Alpha Bank
The British Council
The Hellenic Actors Association

«We all live under the threat of the atomic bomb - cancer - cancer inducing substances - disease - unemployment - sexual impotency - we live in fear of fear - of black people - of white people - of the police - of income tax - of interest rates - of parking tickets - of the fear of forgetting our lines - of losing money - of making too much money - of losing our hair - of getting fat - of getting ugly - of appearing silly - boring - shy - stupid - of not knowing which loudspeakers to choose - how to fix a car - a bicycle - how to learn the piano - of the fear of failure - of the fear of exposing ourselves - of being late for work - of not having a pension - insurance - of old age - of death - of war - of being injured in a car accident - of the fear of becoming blind - deaf - of not understanding the joke - of taking risks - of swimming - of diving - of jumping off the springboard - of the fear of sickness - of the fear of moving house - of selling - of buying - of the irrational fear of spiders - dark closets - knives - criminals - people - parties - crowds - clever people - of the fear of speaking your mind - of the fear of women - men - the police - stress - it is for all these reasons that this play is dedicated to those who are afraid.»
Steven Berkoff

KVETCH is a black comedy - a study on the impact of stress on our lives, a study on the anxiety that keeps us awake at night. It is the demon who is thirsty for our blood and is ready to suck our self-confidence. We are surrounded by scores of problems that are not queuing to be solved, but at any given moment they are ready to jump the queue and to scream until they get our attention, regardless of whether what we have been up to has just been ruined. These kvetch are the neglected children that were born out of a faraway anxiety. We might want them to disappear, we might shout at them, confide them to our therapists, or we take pills to kill them at birth but, somehow, these always return in the end. How often is it that when we speak we engage in an inner conversation with ourselves, hoping to be guided or protected? Sometimes, however, this conversation, which takes place in the depths of our minds, is more real than our actual words. If only we could always put these hidden thoughts into words, our communication would be much more profound! We are like icebergs that float through life slowly and rarely, if ever, do they reveal what lies beneath.

EMPROS THEATRE
2 Riga Palamidi Str., Athens GR
March - May 2003

2001-02

Do you love me?

 

Translated by
Maria Gouli
Olga Pozeli

Devised & Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Sets & Costumes by
Kostis Davaris

Lighting design by
Pandelis Petrakis

Choreographed by
Roula Koutroumbeli

Music supervision by
Eleftheria Emmanouil
Olga Pozeli

Assistants to the director
Dimitra Bastouni
Alexia Bouloukou


Cast
Giorgos Katsigiannis
Haris Bosinas
Despina Nikitidou
Olga Pozeli
Giannis Ifantis


Funded by
The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports
The Hellenic Actors Association
The Manpower Employment Organization of Greece


Supported by
The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation (Alpha Bank)

Jack wants to devour his mother and be devoured by her. Later, he oscillates between wanting to devour her but not wanting to be devoured by her, and not wanting to devour her but wanting her to devour him. Later still, he does not want to devour her and does not want her to devour him.
Jack feels Jill is devouring him. He is devoured by his devouring fear of being devoured by her devouring desire for him to devour her.

Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing gained a reputation in the late 1960’s for his radical objection to conventional psychiatry. His early books The Divided Self and The Politics of Experience questioned the right of society to proclaim itself sane and others mad.

Protesting the “outrageous violence” inflicted on patients by drastic therapies like electric shock, he generated controversy with his willingness to try psychedelic drugs, meditation, and other unconventional techniques in search of a healing common ground between doctor and patient.

Apart from his purely scientific books Laing wrote three others, which belong to the field of literature. Do You Love Me? and Knots are a “conversation in dialogue and verse” (to quote Laing himself). They are a sequence of dialogues and poems that vividly depict the “knots” and impasses of human relationships.

The Facts of Life consists of diaries, memoirs, and thoughts, which reveal Laing’s conviction that disturbed personalities, are sane people who react irrationally to an environment of emotional instability, frigidity, and violence. Besides, Laing himself was an assaulted and battered, by his parents, child and that surely constitutes an omen for his later focusing on the interpersonal and social environ that people grow in.

Our show is based on these three books and constitutes an attempt to work our way into the wounded soul of a boy who is suffocating in his attempt to understand the absurd games his parents play. Games he inevitably resorts to, himself because he does not know any other way of “being” in a relationship.


This be the verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
by fools in old-style hats and coats,
who half the time were soppy-stern
and half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
and don't have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin 

NATIONAL THEATRE OF GREECE | EXPERIMENTAL STAGE
22-24 Agiou Konstantinou Str., Athens GR
+30 210 5288100
June 2001
FOURNOS THEATRE
168 Mavromihali Str., Athens GR
+30 210 6460748
October - December 2001
ANETON THEATRE
42 Paraskevopoulou Str., Thessaloniki GR
+30 2310 869869
February 2002
FESTIVAL OF EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE IN TRIPOLIS
Tripolis GR
July 2002

1999

Her big chance | A sermon

Alan Bennett | David Mamet

 

Translated & Directed by
Olga Pozeli

Sets & Costumes by
Kostis Davaris

Choreographed by
Maria Gouli

Music supervision by
Iakovos Drosos

Lighting design by
Panagiotis Manoussis

Photos by
Haris Kakarouhas


Cast

Her big chance

A sermon
Giannis Lazaris
Giannis Ifantis

Lesley, a young aspiring actress in her thirties, and Simon, a Catholic priest, are, at first glance, two diametrically different characters. However, behind this illusory facade, they both reveal the same tragicomic aspects of a social mechanism that cleverly conceals self-deception and various forms of corruption.

I sat in the bar for a bit. Just one fellow in there. I said, "My hobby is people, what do you do?" Lo and behold he's on the film too, the animal handler, Kenny. In charge of the cat. I said, "That's interesting, Kenny. I didn't know there was going to be a cat. I love cats. I love dogs too, but I love cats." He said, "Would you care to see her? She's asleep on my bed." I said, "That's convenient." He said, "Lesly. Don't run away with that idea. I am wedded to my small charges."
Alan Bennett | Her big chance


And kindness starts at home. You can not beat your pets, and come quick at your wife, pretending that you forgot to take the garbage out and go be nice to whales. It is not right, it is transparent and it makes you look like a jackass too. Whales don’t deserve it. They’re fat and live in the ocean unlike your wife who’s fat and lives at home.
David Mamet | A sermon

TECHNOHOROS YPO SKIAN THEATRE
Athens GR
April - June 1999
  • ❝ ...when you create a performance from scratch, you are the playwright and the director at the same time. You deal with burning issues of today. And in this, your performers are your accomplices, who contribute with their own experiences, their own beliefs, their own memories. Can you think of anything more creative than that? ❞