On the edge of the city, above the railway lines, the neighbourhood that was built and inhabited for almost a hundred years by refugees from Asia Minor hosts the Station Athens group: Hassan, Aydin, Reza, Khalil and Lefteris. A classroom in Bangladesh, a prison in Athens, a house in Kabul, a basement in Tehran and a hospital “move” into the historic neighbourhood of Eleusis and settle in the low houses with their whitewashed courtyards and blossoming little gardens, in the narrow paved lanes of the refugee quarter, in the Primary School that hosted three generations of Asia Minor refugees, and in the tiny shops. Yesterday and today are woven together theatrically around Asia Minor Refugees’ Square, where art becomes a tool for exploration, nostalgia and confession. Their personal narratives embody history in a unique and spontaneous way and give the space new meaning, while the spectators live a singular experience in this special neighbourhood.
From fugitives from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the members of the Station Athens group become protagonists. They tell personal stories, share memories and objects, and display documents and photographs from life in their homelands. They shout. They sing. They talk on Skype. They work. They learn Greek. And all of this through the act of theatre. The group comes together to create a performance for the eighth consecutive year, and for the first time it settles in an entire neighbourhood, inviting spectators to walk through the place and discover the protagonists of the stage – as well as the others, those of real life.
The group’s research into stories of flight began in 2014, when the first version of the play E_FYGA was created and presented in different spaces of Synergyo, a five-storey building in the Metaxourgeio district. The presentation of E_FYGA in Upper Eleusis is the result of the group’s later work, reworking the adaptation and installation of the performance for the historic neighbourhood of the European Capital of Culture 2021.
Yolanda Markopoulou
Yolanda Markopoulou is a director and producer. From 2007 to 2017 she focused her artistic activity on the space she named SYNERGYO (www.synergyo.gr), where she directed the performances Tejas Verdes, Dead Travellers, Shoot Get Treasure Repeat, Against Progress, Exodus, 1911, In the Grove of the Modest (European Cultural Centre of Delphi), Soil and others. At the Theatre of Kefallinias Street she presented the performances Ward No. 6 and Emigrés. Alongside her work with professional actors, she collaborates with and guides groups of diverse backgrounds who reshape and present on stage their own biographies and personal testimonies, proposing her own theatrical idiom, which moves within documentary theatre while being enriched with elements of fiction. Particularly notable are her performances E_FYGA and We Are the Persians! with the Station Athens group, made up of young refugees and migrants, as well as I, the Gambler and Roulettenburg with the theatre workshop The Gambler, made up of people who had been pathologically addicted to gambling. All these works were created through regular meetings and long-term research with the participants. It is precisely this long relationship with each group that strengthens the artistic process. Her aim is to propose – through the careful, site-specific choice of the venue for each project – new conditions for the participants to “meet” the audience. In this way, and within an artistic and aesthetic framework that is as accomplished as possible, she goes beyond a purely emotional aim or simple documentation, and ultimately gives the participant-actors the opportunity to bring out their stories in purely theatrical terms.
In 2017, together with Ioanna Valsamidou, she founded and has since curated the mind the fact festival (www.mindthefact.gr), an innovative model of art and cultural production that aims to turn our gaze towards the Other. It highlights true events, with the very people who lived them as protagonists. The performances, exhibitions and actions of mind the fact are created through a system of carefully designed workshops lasting several months, guided by professional artists and supported by humanitarian organisations, support groups and social scientists, and are presented at the mind the fact festival alongside selected actions from international platforms.
Credits
Station Athens group: Khalil Alizada, Hossein Amiri, Ramzan Mohammad, Reza Mohammadi, Aydin Joymal
Concept – Direction: Yolanda Markopoulou
Dramaturgy: Margarita Papadopoulou
Artistic Direction & Set Design: Paris Mexis
Sound Design & Music: Lambros Pigounis
Lighting Design: Olympia Mytilinaiou
Assistant Lighting Designer: Nefeli Ntakozoudi
Participants: Eleana Kafkala, Rena Kyprioti, Eva Oikonomou-Vamvaka, Efthalia Papakosta
Project Coordination: Ioanna Valsamidou
Coordinators: Giouli Nasi, Tilemachos Tsolis
Production Assistants: Tania Koutala, Jenny Anagnostopoulou, Nikos Charalampidis
Photographer: Elina Giounanli
Production Management: Vicky Strataki
With the support of: mind the fact
Production: Eleusis 2021 European Capital of Culture, POLYPLANITY Productions
