Tassos Vrettos pictures from the Eleusys archaeological site during the collective performance of the Klas Eriksson and the performance by Fatos Ustek and Per Huttner.
"Worlds have a longer life than deeds". Pyndaros
Ouunpo is a three days symposium that will take place in various locations across and around the city of Athens through conventional and non-conventional investigations. The symposium, dedicated to the “oral tradition”, will include performance, round-table discussions, lectures, screenings, visits and walks to various selected sites.
Greece is a country where myths, art, epic and lyrical songs originated from oral tradition and kept alive by travelling poets. This country is also in the limelight due to the current political and economical crisis.
Our visit will be an occasion to investigate the tradition of storytelling and myth as a form of sharing knowledge and performing history, which often stand in opposition to the methodology of institutions. We will try to re-evoke the oral memory of events in contemporary (art) world, with a specific approach to the rituality and the improvisation that are always connected to oral narratives. Performance and initiation to a secret knowledge will be also the objects of our conversations with members of the esoteric milieu and of the masonic lodge.
Inspired by the great religious, theatrical, democratic and artistic traditions of Greece, and in dialogue with local artists, musicians, composers, art historians and curators,we will observe the present moment, and reflect about how a genuine revolutionary movement needs to brake with literal repetition of the past.
Loukia Alavanou, Episodio 3, 2011
To perform something means to interpret it, to betray it, to distort it. Boris Groys affirms that “the opposition between living spirit and dead letter informs the whole traditional Western discourse on religion”, but also on art itself, as embodiment of the creative spirit of change.
The program of the Ouunpo symposium is proposed by Vanessa Theodoropoulou in collaboration with Nadja Argyropoulou.
Members of Ouunpo are : Jacopo Miliani, Meris Angioletti, Raimundas Malasauskas, Marco Pasi, Paola Anziche’, Per Huttner, Alessandra Sandrolini, Yane Calovski, Klas Eriksson, Fatos Ustek, Elena Nemkova, Natasha Rosling, Stephen Whitmarsh.
Invitees of the Symposium are : Georgia Spiropoulos (composer), Sasha Chaitov (MA western esotericism and director of Phoenix Rising Academy) with Iordanis Poulkouras (…), Saprofyta, Marios Chatziprokopiou (artist), Kostantinos Dagritzikos (curator, Six Dogs), Stefanos Rozanis (writer and philosopher), Yianna Tsokou (Professor of Theatrology at the University of Thessaloniki), Chiara Fumai (artist), Nanos Valaoritis (poet and writer).
29th Sept.
Visit to the island of Aegina and to the temple of “Aphaea”.
30 Sept.
Athens, DESTE foundation: Meeting with the poet Nanos Valaoritis and with Stefanos Rozanis, writer and philosopher. Presentation of the project “Saprofyta” by Nadja Argyropoulou (curator of “Hotel Paradies”, Athens Biennial 2009) Yorgos Tzirtzilakis, Malvina Panagiotidi.
Eleusys : Visit to the archaeological site. Collective performance directed by artist Klas Eriksson. Performance by Fatos Ustek and Per Huttner. Artist Marios Chatziprokopiou presents the screening of the film by "Agelatos Petra" by Filippou Koutsaftis. Visit of the temporary exhibitions of Stephen Antonakos and Loukia Alavanou, screening of the work of artists Panagiotis Loukas and Panos Tsagaris.
1rst of Oct.
Athens : Visit to the Greek Masonic Lodge and to its temple. Presentation by Iordanis Poulkouras and Sasha Chaitov, Director of Phoenix Rising Accademy, about "The Eleusinian mysteries through the ages. Initiatory practices in the Western esoteric tradition and their role in modern art and theather".
Panos Tsagaris, 2011.
17.50 Athens, Six Dogs space, in collaboration with curator Kostantinos Dagritzikos: Composer Georgia Spiropoulos will present her work focusing on the relationship between written and oral tradition, on improvisation and composition. She will also introduce us to Yianna Tsokou, Professor of Theatrology at the University of Thessaloniki, with whom she will talk about the ancient Anastenaria rituals. Presentation, discussion and concert.
29 September – 2 October 2011
