Shows

One Three Some, An Attempt for Devising A Democratic Assembly

Danae Theodoridou | Βelgium

Start Date: 13-06-2023 - 19:00
End Date: 13-06-2023 - 08:00Start Date: 14-06-2023 - 19:00
End Date: 14-06-2023 - 08:00Start Date: 15-06-2023 - 19:00
End Date: 15-06-2023 - 08:00

City Council Hall – Municipality of Thessaloniki
13, 14 and 15 June, 19:00

One Three Some, An Attempt for Devising A Democratic Assembly
by Danae Theodoridou

One Three Some, An Attempt to Create a Democratic Assembly is an application of the performance techniques and tools that will be presented in the webinar "Creating Public Space and Time through the Performing Arts: a web panel for emancipatory participation in the arts".
In One Three Some – An Attempt for Devising a Democratic Assembly, the audience/participants, together with three performers, create their own citizens’ assembly following a script given to them at the beginning of the performance. The script assigns ‘roles’ (of speaker, listener, moderator, etc.) to the members of the assembly, instructing them on what to do or say (or even refuse to do or say if they want to). Part of the script is left open, giving space to participants to express their thoughts about democracy and our social coexistence. Through a game structure, the assembly is led step by step into a collective reflection on the practice of assembling and our personal attitude in it, as well as on the central role of the body in politics.
One Three Some – An Attempt for Devising a Democratic Assembly is the maker’s third work on the practice of democracy. After An Analogue Campaign, which explored the (more individual) practice of public speaking, and Languages of the Unheard, which experimented with the language of protest, this time the focus is on an embodied approach to the practice of assembling. Considering the body as the basis of politics, this participatory performance explores how the way we use and position our bodies in relation to other bodies can affect the way we think, speak, feel and act politically.

Duration: ‘120
Language: Greek

One Three Some, An Attempt for Devising A Democratic Assembly
by Danae Theodoridou

Concept, creation: Danae Theodoridou
Dramaturgical support: Betina Panagiotara
Performed by: Ilektra Fragiadaki, Manos Vavadakis, Katerina Zisoudi, and 45 audience members/participants
Set and costume design: Magda Dimou
Artistic-dramaturgical advice: Lara Barsacq, Rudi Laermans, Efrosini Protopapa

Political philosophers and analysts argue that today we live in democracies without demos, where citizens are alarmingly absent from elections and political decision-making. In what way could the theatrical frame contribute to overcoming this crisis? ‘The people’, Chantal Mouffe notes, can never exist in an abstract sense, before its public appearance. In order for ‘demos’ to exists, its members have to meet and exchange views on the here and now, their everyday problems and the way they feel about them. In other words, demos exists when it understands and practices the embodied emotional dimension of politics.
One Three Some is based on such an understanding of politics. By placing the body, its desires and emotions at the center of our focus, we attempted to do what I consider the ultimate goal of art, to create public space and time. Individuals who, in their vast majority, have no connection to institutional forms of democracy, enter places where important political decisions are made and propose an alternative practice of democracy within them. They thus contribute to the emergence of a new social imaginary about what democracy is and how we want to practice it.
Whether this imaginary actually manages to emerge remains to be answered by those directly responsible, the demos itself. Without whom neither our work nor democracy exists. I thank them warmly for their presence.

Danae Theodoridou is a performance maker and researcher. Her artistic research focuses on social imaginaries, the practice of democracy and the way that art contributes to the emergence of socio-political alternatives. She teaches in Fontys University of Applied Sciences (NL) and in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR), curates practice-led research projects, and presents and publishes her work internationally. She is the co-author of The Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance (Valiz, 2017) and the author of PUBLICING: Practising Democracy Through Performance (Nissos, 2022). More information: www.danaetheodoridou.com