2nd INTERNATIONAL FOREST FESTIVAL
For the second consecutive year, the National Theatre of Northern Greece is organizing the International Forest Festival, as part of the
“4th Dassous Festival”, hosting important productions from abroad.
From June 27th to July 6th, the people of Thessaloniki will have the chance to meet prominent artists and watch award-wining theatrical performances from Italy, France, Belgium, Hungary, Portugal, UK and Lebanon.
2nd International Forest Festival
Schedule Overview
“Tribute to John Williams”
Film Music
Italy - EMILIA ROMAGNA TEATRO FONDAZIONE-Teatro Stabile Pubblico Regionale Compagnia “Pippo Delbono”
“VANGELO”
Political Theatre with documentary and operatic elements
Surtitles in English and Greek
France
“HYBRIDATION” - Olivier de Sagazan
Performance
France
“TRANSFIGURATION” - Olivier de Sagazan
Performance
Belgium
“ANECKXANDER”
Dance Theatre - Performance
A tragic autobiography of the body.
Age rating: 15 years and over.
Hungary - FORTE COMPANY (Foundation for Massive Dance)
“YOUR KINGDOM”
Physical theatre Performance
Surtitles in English and Greek
Portugal - Companhia do Chapitô
“Electra”
Devised theatre Performance
A comedy based on the various stage versions of the tragedy “Electra”.
Age rating: 12 years and over.
Surtitles in English and Greek.
United Kingdom - GECKO THEATRE LTD
“Missing”
Visual theatre Performance with aspects of devised and physical theatre
Surtitles in English and Greek.
Lebanon
“RIDING ON A CLOUD” - Rabih Mroué
Performance
Age rating: 12 years and over.
Surtitles in English and Greek.
Lebanon
“THE PIXELATED REVOLUTION” - Rabih Mroué
Lecture-Performance
Age rating: 12 years and over.
Surtitles in English and Greek.
2nd International Forest Festival
Detailed Schedule
“Tribute to John Williams” - Film Music
The
Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to the film music of the award-winning American composer John Williams, who has written some of our most famous and beloved movie scores, including the music for: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Superman, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, and E.T. The
TSSO’s tribute brings together the composer’s most beautiful tracks on an exciting night for all music and film lovers.
Conductor: Zoi Tsokanou
Programme John Williams (1932)
- Intro from The Cowboys series
- Harry Potter symphonic suite
- Hook – “Flight to Neverland”
- Jaws orchestral suite
- Memoirs of a Geisha – “Sayuri’s Theme”
- Jurassic Park theme
- Schindler’s List theme
- Indiana Jones suite
- Star Wars suite
“VANGELO”
Political Theatre with documentary and operatic elements
Pippo Delbono has been experimenting on stage for many years now, exploring the fertile ground between public and personal, autobiography and history, shaping works that stand out on the international scene for their originality.
VANGELO is a choral work which began life as a contemporary opera; it first took shape in Zagreb, performed by the orchestra, choir, dancers and actors of the Croatian National Theatre in collaboration with the acting company that has been working with Pippo Delbono for many years.
VANGELO takes its cue from the atmospheres of Enzo Avitabile’s music. It is rich in poetic overtones, but also sheds a stark light on the memories of its Croatian performers, who lived through the traumatic events of a cruel war that reshaped the history, sites and boundaries of their native land. Boundaries which were further shaken during the creation of VANGELO by the arrival of ten thousand men, women and children desperately seeking a Promised Land.
Conceived and Directed by Pippo Delbono
With: Gianluca Ballarè, Bobò, Margherita Clemente, Pippo Delbono, Ilaria Distante, Simone Goggiano, Mario Intruglio, Nelson Lariccia, Gianni Parenti, Alma Prica, Pepe Robledo, Grazia Spinella, Nina Violić, Safi Zakria, Mirta Zečević
Images and Films: Pippo Delbono
Original Digital Soundtrack for Orchestra and Polyphonic Choir: Enzo Avitabile
Sets: Claude Santerre
Costumes: Antonella Cannarozzi
Lighting Designer: Fabio Sajiz
Refugees from the PIAM reception in Asti (Italy) participate in the films.
Surtitles in English and Greek.
France - Olivier de Sagazan
“HYBRIDATION”
Performance
Olivier de Sagazan is a painter and a sculptor. Sometimes, he inserts his own body into the battle, as he does in this performance. In general, he works alone, although sometimes, like here in HYBRIDATION, he works as part of a duo. He has made over 100 performances in the US, China, India and Europe.
Olivier de Sagazan has developed a hybrid practice that integrates painting, sculpture and performance. He builds layers of clay and paint onto his own face and body to transform himself, revealing an animalistic human seeking to break away from the physical world.
In HYBRIDATION, two people, a man and a woman, sculpt clay on their heads. Burying themselves in the material, eradicating their identity and becoming a living work of art, mutating into the body of the other and forming a dialogue that oscillates between puppet and puppeteer with moments of fusion, rivalry and love, they restate questions of identity in the knowledge that it is built in relation to the Other.
With Olivier de Sagazan and Stephanie Sant.
France - Olivier de Sagazan
“TRANSFIGURATION”
Performance
With Olivier de Sagazan.
TRANSFIGURATION is a performance which narrates the story of the sculptor’s unfulfilled desire to imbue his creation with life. In a gesture of despair, Olivier de Sagazan sculpts clay on his head, burying himself in the material, eradicating his identity and becoming a living work of art somewhere between marionette and puppeteer. But when the material blinds him, he is forced to look inwards, into the very depths of his Self. In a fascinating, expressive, total performance, Sagazan shifts identities on stage, from man to animal and from animal to various hybrid creatures.
He pierces, erases and unravels the layers of his face in a frenetic and uninhibited quest.
Painting and sculpting oneself becomes a form of ritual positioned between dance and trance, where improvisation is essential. TRANSFIGURATION gives new meaning to the notion of life, offering captivating, disturbing, moving insights into the possibilities and unpredictabilities of morphogenesis.
Με τον Olivier de Sagazan.
Belgium - Alexander Vantournhout & Bauke Lievens
“ANECKXANDER”
Dance theatre - Performance
A tragic autobiography of the body
ANECKXANDER is a solo in a minimal setting for one acrobatic body, a handful of carefully selected objects, and three variations on a piano piece by Arvo Pärt. Teetering on the fine line between tragedy and comedy, Alexander / Aneckxander rewrites the autobiography of his own body: from subject to object to matter. The result is a raw self-portrait in which the body both exposes itself to, and seeks to escape from, the onlookers’ prying eyes.
Age rating: 15 years and over
With: Alexander Vantournhout
Dramaturgy: Bauke Lievens
Dramaturgic Advice: Dries Douibi, Gerald Kurdian
Outside Eyes: Geert Belpaeme, Anneleen Keppens, Lore Missine, Lili M. Rampre, Methinee Wongtrakoon
Lighting Design: Tim Oelbrandt, Rinus Samyn
Music: Arvo Pärt
Costumes: Nefeli Myrtidi, Anne Vereecke
Photos: Bart Grietens
In collaboration with Bauke Lievens, as part of the study Between being and imagining: towards a methodology for artistic research in contemporary circus, financed by the research fund of KASK School of Arts, Gent (BE).
Supported by Circus Next, a European scheme coordinated by Talents Cirque Europe, funded with support from the European Commission.
Production: NOT STANDING asbl / Beversesteenweg 78,8800 Roeselare (BE).
Coproduction: Circus Next, Les Subsistances Lyon (FR), Festival PERPLX Kortrijk-Marke (BE), Festival novog cirkusa Zagreb (HR)
The performance has won the “Laureat of Circus NEXT” (2014), the “TAZ” (Oostende) and the “Twenty shortlisted young choreographers of Aerowaves” (2016) awards.
Hungary - FORTE COMPANY (Foundation for Massive Dance)
“YOUR KINGDOM”
Physical theatre Performance
YOUR KINGDOM is a spectacle for those who value the modern form in the theatre and interesting and imaginative choreography used to tell moving stories. It is a combination of dance, text, music and art.
The Forte Company group were inspired by the work of the novelist Sàndor Tar (1941-2005) to create YOUR KINGDOM. The rise and fall of the great Hungarian writer was one of the most tragic and controversial episodes in the country’s literary scene in recent decades. By adapting the writer’s finest short stories, the performance focuses on the mental disintegration of personality. However, although some threads may refer loosely to the writer, the performance does not seek to present his personal story.
Adapted by: Tibor Keresztury
Directed by: Csaba Horváth
Dramaturge: Judit Garai
Choruses composed by: Csaba Okròs
Costumes: Mari Benedek
Sets: Zsófìa Mocsàr
Lighting Design: Ferenc Payer
Production Manager: Anna Kudron
Assistant to the Director: Franciska Stangl
Cast: Máté Andrássy, László Fehér, Nóra Földeáki, László Hevesi, Barnabás Horkay, József Kádas, Niké Kurta, Norbert Nagy, Máté Novkov, Márton Pallag, Emőke Zsigmond.
The performance has won the “Best Performace by the critics - Thealter Festival” (Szeged), the “Dance Festival” (Veszprém), the “Lábán Rudolf Award” (Best Choreography), the “Kaszás Attila Award” (2017) and the “Jászai Mari Award” (2018) awards.
Surtitles in English and Greek.
“Electra”
Devised theatre Performance
A comedy based on the various stage versions of the tragedy “Electra”
Chapitó’s production, ELECTRA, was voted best play by a panel of accredited Theatre professionals at the 30th Huesca Theatre and Dance World Festival in 2016. Before the year was out, ELECTRA also became the third consecutive Chapitó production to be awarded the seal of quality from LA RED, the Spanish Network of Publicly Owned Theatres, Auditoriums, Circuits and Festivals.
Electra convinces her brother to help her kill their mother, the same mother who got her lover to help her kill her husband (who needed no help whatsoever to sacrifice his eldest daughter, so the winds would carry his fleet off to war). In the end, all that’s left for Electra is to dance until she dies.
Age rating: 12 years and over.
Collective Work by: Companhia do Chapitô
Directed by: Claudia Nóvoa, José Carlos Garcia
Sound Design: Samuel Rodrigues, Silvio Rosado
Cotumes: Glòria Mendes
Lighting Designer: José Carlos Garcia, Samuel Rodrigues
Graphic Designer: Silvio Rosado
Production Management: Tania Melo Rodrigues
Performers: Jorge Cruz, Nadia Santos / Susana Nunes
Surtitles in English and Greek.
“Missing”
Visual theatre Performance with aspects of devised and physical theatre
The award-winning and internationally acclaimed physical theatre company Gecko is bringing MISSING, a deliciously warped journey into the depths of the human psyche, to the 2nd International Forest Festival.
We follow Lily, a woman whose soul appears to be in decay. She is very successful in life and in love, but something is missing...
The shadows of Lily’s past invite her, along with the audience, to consider how far they have strayed from who they are and where they came from in a truly universal theatrical experience.
Since 2012, MISSING has been performed in Russia, China, Georgia, Malta, Colombia, Mexico, Hong Kong, Macau and across the UK.
Created by Amit Lahav.
Producer: Rosalind Wynn
Production Manager: Chris Swain
Devising Performers: Chris Evans, Ryen Perkins-Gangnes, Georgina Roberts / Katie Lusby, Frangois Testory/ Amit Lahav, Anna Finkel.
Sets: Rhys Jarman, Amit Lahav
Lighting Design: Chris Swain, Amit Lahav
Original Music: Dave Price
Associate Director: Rich Rusk
Sound Design: Enzo Appetecchia
Costumes Supervisor: Amy Cook
Musicians: Dave Price, Ben Hales, Sam Burgess, Al Cherry, Finn Peters
Solo Vocalist: Georgina Roberts
Surtitles in English and Greek.
Lebanon - Rabih Mroué
“RIDING ON A CLOUD”
Performance
This piece of theatre from the director Rabih Mroué is an impressive combination of the personal and the political. In RIDING ON A CLOUD, he invites his brother Yasser to play a character who resembles him personally. As someone who was injured in the Lebanese civil war and lost his ability to use words, Yasser began to shoot videos. As these fuse with his memories as they are recounted on stage, they form a subjective picture of political developments in Lebanon.
RIDING ON A CLOUD also describes the fragile construction of a biography which emerges out of political reality, memories, facts and fiction.
For Mroué, this is always a starting point for artistic self-reflection, which he then transposes into theatre and exhibitions.
Age rating: 12 years and over.
Written and Directed by: Rabih Mroué
With: Yasser Mroué
In Collaboration with: Sarmad Louis
Assistant Director: Petra Serhal
Assistant: Janine Baroud
English translation: Ziad Nawfal
Surtitles in English and Greek.
Lebanon - Rabih Mroué
“THE PIXILATED REVOLUTION”
Lecture-Performance
The internationally-acclaimed Lebanese artist Rabih Mroué presents his much-admired PIXELATED REVOLUTION, a lecture-performance which its creator describes as “anti-academic”.
Starting with the observation that “The Syrian people is filming its own death”, Rabih Mroué’s work is a comment on eye-witness records of the cold-blooded murder of unarmed civilians in the city of Homs and the subsequent reproduction of these videos and photographs on the Internet and social networks. Combining bitterness with irony and a newsreader-style delivery, Mroué highlights an unexpected link with the Danish “Dogma ‘95” cinema movement and its arguments in favor of a transgressively amateurish aesthetic. Throughout the course of the performance, the viewer’s gaze identifies both with that of the amateur filmmaker and that of the sniper whose bullet brings the filming to a permanent stop.
Age rating: 12 years and over.
An anti-academic lecture by Rabih Mroué
English Translation: Ziad Nawfal
Surtitles in English and Greek.
The theatre companies participating in the
2nd International Forest Festival are organizing workshops as part of the events. The workshops are free of charge and intended for professional actors, dancers and students of drama schools.
Standard: 15€
Students: 12€
Unemployed/Disabled: 10€
Gallery: 10€
Card-holders for the International Forest Festival: 60€
Information-Ticket Sale:
National Theatre of Northern Greece | www.ntng.gr
Τ. 2315 200 200
Vassiliko Theatre (White Tower Square):
Monday: 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Tuesday to Sunday: 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Society for Macedonian Studies (Ethinikis Aminis 2):
Wednesday to Sunday: 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Lazaristes Monastery (Kolokotroni 25-27, Stavroupoli):
Wednesday to Sunday: 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
NTNG Ticket Office at Aristotelous Square:
Monday, Wednesday & Saturday: 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Thursday & Friday: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. & 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
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