The descendants of refugees from Asia Minor in Upper Eleusis star in a site-specific peripatetic performance in the quaint neighborhood of Synikismos (Settlement). The small refugee homes and the impassable alleys silently bear witness to the memories of the great uprooting. Storytelling tiles compose the mosaic of the performance, which moves between fiction and documentation. The personal testimony of one becomes the story of many. Participants and audience view the origins and heritage of Asia Minor Greeks through radios, televisions, music and documentary videos that have not been silenced for a hundred years – a live broadcast that continues in perpetuity and is transmitted to future generations. Behind peeled walls, abandoned courtyards and newly built two-storey houses, a new version of history is being laid out for the first time.

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Tradition, living memory and the relationship with the past are the starting point for the journey of both participants and audience. The material of the performance was gathered over months of meetings, on-site interviews and informal one-to-one conversations with the residents at the Museum of Asia Minor Greeks, a landmark of great historical and emotional significance for Upper Eleusis. At the same time, the very process of collecting the material has been extensively documented through filming and sound recordings, which document not only the rehearsals and the process but also the everyday life, the rhythms and the particular character of the Synikismos area. The musicians and the actors, together with the participants, become part of a single, collective creative process. The core of the narratives is enriched with historical archive material from Filippos Koutsaftis’s Mourning Rock (Agelastos Petra), and the whole of the record is shaped into an interdisciplinary composition that deals with the reconstruction of memory. The cross-pollination and interweaving of narration and reconstruction are mediated through the actors’ performance, video projections, the soundscape and live music, which together create the universe of the performance, while alternative ways of interaction between the different means of expression are explored.

This year’s presentation by Yolanda Markopoulou and her artistic collaborators at the Synikismos Festival is part of a long process of research and artistic practice on the theme of displacement and forced relocation, accompanied by a steady, regular presence in the neighbourhood. The walking performance E_FYGA by the group Station Athens at the 2018 Synikismos Festival presented stories of refugees and migrants who recently arrived in Greece from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the second part of the research, which this time traces an aspect of Greek history, the same field of action is kept; it is charged differently, yet it remains one of the levers that drive the performance and one of the threads that link the stories together. The show broadens the ongoing dialogue between documentary and performance the group has opened with the place and its residents since 2018.

Credits

Directed by: Yolanda Markopoulou

Dramaturgy: Ioanna Valsamidou

Collaboration in dramaturgy: Thanos Tsakalidis

Video Design: Erato Tzavara & Yolanda Markopoulou

Musical Composition: dorόs

Sound Design: Lambros Pigounis

Research: The team

Cast: Thanos Tsakalidis, Ifigeneia Karamitrou

Live Music: dorόs – Nickolas Angelopoulos (lute, Politiko lute), Dimitris Brendas (clarinet, ney, kaval), Alexis Nonis (darbuka, bendir, stamna, cajon, kalimba), Nikos Skafidas (violin), Christos Syngelos (oud)

Participating members of the Association of Asia Minor in Eleusis: Grigoris Asimakopoulos, Georgia Giagtzoglou-Antoniadou, Marina Daskalou, Voula Kalaskani, Froso Karakitsou, Maria Lioura, Periklis Michailos, Kaiti Saritzioti, Vaso Sfika, Vaggelis Tsakiroglou, Eugenia Tsolaki

Production Management: Vicky Strataki

Set Design Assistant: Sofialena Xezonaki

Venue Coordination: Marilena Moschou

Production Assistants: Tania Koutala, Elena Livathinou, Nikos Charalampidis, Aidan Tong

Surtitles: Myrto Giannakopoulou

Production: Eleusis 2021, POLYPLANITY Productions

With the support of the Museum of History and Folklore of the Association of Asia Minor in Eleusis and mind the fact.

Warm thanks to Filippos Koutsaftis for granting the archive material from the film Mourning Rock.