The Tsiler building of the National Theater on Agios Konstantinos Street in Omonoia has been occupied since Saturday evening, February 4, by drama school students.
Specifically, a Facebook post by the National Theater Drama School Student Association states: «The occupation of the National Theater's Drama School welcomes the occupation of the Tsileler Theater building, which is now a reality as of tonight, February 4, 2023. We, the students of the Drama Schools, are taking our fate and our future into our own hands and are resisting in every way the institutional devaluation that undermines our educational and artistic progress.».
And it is further noted: «As young artists who have been flooding the streets of central Athens for weeks now, demanding the fulfillment of our just demands, the amendment of Presidential Decree (85/2022) with the provision of T.E. (Technical Education) in our degrees, the provision of housing, food, and student benefits, and the establishment of new Higher Schools of Performing Arts, we declare that we will fight together until the end against government indifference, the degradation of art in life, and the government's attack on the freedom that our art represents.».
The National Theater Drama School Student Association also emphasizes: «The occupation of Athens» most important, historic theater demonstrates in the most dynamic, united, and militant way that the theater is not protected, of course, the riot police who guarded it during Thursday's big march, ridiculing the government in the eyes of society, nor is it protected by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, which today indulged in the hypocritical and wasteful celebration of Elefsina as the Cultural Capital of 2023, but by its actors, its directors, its dancers, its workers of all kinds, its children. We therefore support the occupation of the Tsileler Theater as long as necessary, and we will not stop fighting until we win!".
