Witness/Action – debate
with Dimitris Dimitriadis, Graziano Graziani, Giorgos Alisanoglou and Simona Sala
led by Jarosław Fret
Witness/Action is a debate that aims to define a new model in art, especially in the performing arts. Witness/Action does not involve any new genre definitions within the performing arts, but seeks to move beyond aesthetic categories towards an ethical perspective, built on a belief that any performing situation involving performer/actor and recipient/spectator becomes a part of the chain of witnessing, which, through the medium of art, strive to convey questions relating to human dignity and identity.
Witness/Action stands in opposition to the passiveness of contemporary art and its dissociation from the deep challenges that transform our consciousness.
The panel will start with a meeting with a greek poet and playwright Dimitris Dimitriadis who is also an author of „I Anthropos” a choral used during Medeas. On Getting Across performance. Dimitris in his writings gives us a chance to link a contemporary discourse with archetypical isuues introduced in myths. His unique ability to define what means to be a witness and not only a passive spectator, viewer, reader is crucial for the idea of Witness/Action.
10 July 2017
18.00p.m.
Vassiliko Theatre – Foyer
“My eye is my country, my voice is my country”: Medeas Installation (tour around the settings of the production) and Open Discussion
led by Filippo Furri, Efi Latsoudi with participation of special guests
Dignity will be a leading theme of a panel. Dignity as a process of objectivisation of a person, dignity of dead person and his/her body, dignity of those who are passing borders in search of home and are standing just behind the doors of Europe. The panel will also concentrate on an opposition between „pornographisation” of mass media to present the most attractive and shortest news and tabooisation of reality confronted with a role of active memory and artistic expression, especially in the domain of performing arts. Continuing themes brought by previous debate, we will further explore the role of a performer in Witness/Action model. The role of performing arts as a medium chosen by the topic and existing in ethical space, but not as the medium which limits the topic to a short news flash. What do we have to build a concept of art which will be not pornograhphic, which will be not only a technical possibility of reproduction and replication of news?
The panel will take place inside a special instalation based on an original space used during Medeas. On Getting Across performance. The special guest, Efi Latsoudi awarded Nansen Award for her work with refugees on Lesvos, will be a part of a panel.
11 July 2017
18.00pm
Theatre of the Society for Macedonian Studies
Transmission – Transgression: Open Discussion
with Murat İçlinalça, Aram Kerovpyan, Marjan Vahdat and Mahsę Vahdat
led by Jarosław Fret
A demonstration of the process of transformation of musical source material into a dramatical form.
A particular example would be Armenian chantal singing and Persian singing traditions. This meeting and live presentation aims to bring us closer to the phenomenon of transmission of modal singing. With the presence of unique master-singers in modal singing from Istanbul and Teheran we will try and recreate the process of transmission and focus on the “interpretation” that takes place after score reading. The questions of how the process of transmission changed throughout history, and as a result, where can modal singing, Armenia’s liturgical musical heritage, be found nowadays in form of contemporary music theatre.
The title message will be confronted with the transgressive nature of art, which builds the contemporary meanings.
12 July 2017
18.00pm
Vassiliko Theatre – Foyer
Open Discussion
14 July 2017
11.00 a.m.
Vassiliko Theatre – Foyer
Admission to all side events is free.