International co-productions, famous artists, Greek creators who listen to the present and the future, festivals, performances, exhibitions, films, podcasts, discussions, workshops and actions inspired by human rights, the climate crisis and the natural environment, among many others, make up the programme for the 2021-22 season of Onassis Cultural Centre of the Onassis Foundation, which activates new spaces in the city and the digital world to speak for all of us, hoping that art changes mindsets and new mindsets change the world.
«We are all meeting here today for an opening that two years ago seemed impossible. The pandemic has become part of our everyday life. Fortunately, however, our hopes have overcome our fears. Today, we say that the Roof is reopening after a long time. But what does ”open” mean? It means that we read reality and adapt, like a Darwinian organism to welcome the new. We change our perspective, our gaze, our opinions, our perceptions. We declare ourselves open to what comes from the future, even to reversals as a precondition for creation. Through them we continue to strengthen innovation, which has always been part of the Onassis Foundation's DNA,” said Antonis Papadimitriou, President of the Onassis Foundation, at the event held at the Onassis Cultural Centre for the presentation of the programme.
Ant. Papadimitriou summarized the stigma of the organization's actions last year, while foreshadowing what is to come. It spurs ideas. It changes certainties. It senses. It thinks. It wonders. He takes a stand.«.
«I wish I could, but how I wish I could‘
With a motto based on a verse from the poem by Matsi Hadjilazarou, «Reverse dedication», the State Opera House welcomes the new season with an interesting multi-faceted programme that enhances extroversion and extends beyond its stages to other indoor and outdoor venues in Athens and around the world. Myths, desires, cities, nature and the digital universe are the key words of this year's programming, which was announced at yesterday's event by the Onassis Foundation's Director of Culture, Aphrodite Panagiotakou.
Gus Van Sant, Ivo van Hove and Isabel Ipper, Dimitris Papaioannou, Romain Gavras
Among the big names of the international scene that the theatre is hosting this season, we meet the Palme d'Or winner Gus Van Sant, in his first theatrical performance, and for Andy Warhol.
We will also see Ivo van Hove and Isabelle Ieper in Tennessee Williams« »Glass World«, the Oscar-winning director of »Shame« and »12 Years a Slave«, Steve McQueen, who is creating the art installation »End Credits, 2012-Ongoing«, the unconventional New York writer and essayist Fran Lebowitz, who comes to Athens to talk with Aphrodite Panagiotakou about life in the metropolises, Dimitris Papaioannou with his new work »Transversal Orientation’ which is already triumphing abroad, Rootless Root who, in collaboration with the English sculptor Peter Randall-Page, present in «Stones and Bones» a dance meditation on the fragile nature of human existence and the eternity of marble and Romain Gavras who will bring to the Roof «Genera8ton», an installation consisting of three short films, starring Charlize Theron.
The season opens with «Prometheus» by Nikos Karathanos, which attempts to «mythologize everyday life» (10-30/10).
Next is the up-and-coming Katerina Giannopoulou with «Paradise», a requiem for our planet that is disappearing under the garbage, based on the «Climate Trilogy» by the Austrian Thomas Köck (29/10-7/11).
Argyro Chiotis performs a contemporary musical tragedy about «Chalepas» with libretto by Alexandros Voulgaris (10-27/2).
Lena Kitsopoulou brings «Frankenstein» and his monstrosity to the world of the stage, seeking to talk about loneliness, narcissism, violence and the lost paradise of youth (14/5-10/6), while the Lebanese Ziad Antar attempts to introduce us to the «Diplomacy of the Bladder» (16-17/10).
This year's events will also include Bruno Beltrão and his team's new choreography about the turbulent political life of Bolsonaro's Brazil (29-30/4), the rock musical by Lebanese artist Raed Yassin, «The Sea Between My Soul», with stuffed animals as performers and the nervous voice of Alan Bishop (19-21/11), Christos Papadopoulos’ new choreography «Larsen C», a tribute party to the silent transition of bodies (30/3-3/4/2022), the performance «Once to be realized» in which the director Michael Marmarinos and six composers of contemporary music theatre meet with the unclassified archives of the works of the prematurely lost Yannis Christou (15-17/4) and Thanasis Deligiannis« »ONE ONE", a peculiar musical journey to a provincial entertainment centre of past decades (17-21/11).
The programme will not miss the concert appointments inside and outside the Steghi, from the tributes to George Apergis (Athens Conservatory, 17-20/3) and Iannis Xenakis (A Bridge of Music over Syngrou vol. 7, Panteion University, 2-03/3) to the established festivals Tectonics Athens ’22 (3-5/12), Borderline (8-10/4/2022) and Big Bang 6 (28 & 29/5).
Opening to the city
The man and the cities he builds, the ones he lives in and the ones he dreams of, inspire a series of actions and productions of the Onassis Foundation. A new complex is being created in the urban centre of Athens, the space of the Matala Stoa on Patission, with the aim of acting as a catalyst for cultural and social ferment. Nearby, on the Ares Pedion, the Onassis Foundation will return with new activities in May 2022, following the successful exhibition ’You and AI«. Also in 2022, a space in the centre of Athens, dedicated to Cavafy, will bring together all the documents and objects of the Cavafy Archive.
At the same time, for the past year, the Onassis Foundation has transformed the former KOCH plastics factory into an unexpected space for artistic experimentation and exploration. The first «residents» of Onassis Renti (7A Legaki) have already brought the space to life, filling an uncharted area of Renti with light, amidst workers' apartment buildings, dirt roads and material yards. In the Plaka area, at 16A Frynichou Street, Onassis AiR continues its actions and invites artists to rethink their practice, take time and think outside the established expectations of continuous artistic production, creating a home for an ever-growing and changing artistic community.
The OnAthens programme of the Onassis Foundation, with a series of public interventions and works by contemporary Greek artists, continues and expands to change the everyday experience of the city. At the Athenian Theatre in Dionysiou Areopagitou, where Attic's «Mantra» used to be, we witness a profound erotic confession in public view («Work for a Single Man - Part One’ by the visual artist Ioko Ioannis Kotidis). Ruined detached houses acquire a second life with a unique art installation: the reconstruction of a wall from a demolished house in Pagrati inside the Roof (»Vryaxidos 11 and Aspasia: The unknown face« by Rena Papaspyrou). While the documentary »Builders, Housewives and the Building of Modern Athens« directed by Tasos Langis and Yannis Gaitanidis) sheds light on the history of the Athenian apartment building.
Finally, the Athens Biennale- ECLIPSE with the support of Onassis Culture opens an intercultural dialogue on alternative ways of coexistence in the here and now from 24 to 28 November, in the historic centre of Athens. «ECLIPSE» presents more than 80 emerging and established artists from North and South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Europe, and 32 new productions and premieres, in landmark buildings in the heart of Athens.
