A talk regarding social theatre – Ilias Kounelas

THE PEOPLE HAVE LEFT THE CIRCUS
A talk by Ilias Kounelas regarding social theatre or how a performance longs to rest in the spectator’s heart

It’s like trying to recall the dream you once had. Likewise, Ilias Kounelas unfolds a series of performances, played out on small surfaces, through a real narrative of imaginary journeys always for minimal audiences who find themselves in urgent situations. By giving life to audiences and using unorthodox natural scenery in site-specific atmospheres, he transports us in paradoxical theatrical conditions, thus, unraveling the significant potential and different aspects of Social Theatre and, by extension, Applied Theatre; always seeking this space of execution, which, while it seems de-charmingly ephemeral, it simultaneously travels forever.

The talk will be conducted in Greek

Ages: All
Level: All

Photo credit: #thehead

Ilias Kounelas

He is teaching since 2012 at the Athens Conservatory Drama School the class „Clown / a class about failure“. It’s a self-exposure class that has as subject the things that actors do not love about themselves.
He is rapporteur of the Laskaridis Foundation. The title of his contribution is “The pleasant story of a failed man”.
An alumni of the National Theatre of Northern Greece Drama School, since 2006, he has collaborated with many distinguished directors and many important theatres.
In 2010, after working for commercial theatre, he starts dreaming of a chamber theatre where the audience and the actor will be sitting on the same level and will have “common skin in the theatre game”. He thus creates a theatre “of the person”, where he starts giving value to each spectator as a person. He believes that every person in herself constitutes a full theatre. He abandons the classical theatre stages and creates performances in natural surroundings that are addressed each time to a limited number of spectators. He plays in abandoned neoclassical houses, in church yards, in squares, rooftops, prisons and hospitals.
The performance “Garden – Ashes / from the velvet album of the 20th century” (2011 -2013) for example, was staged for two years in an abandoned neoclassical building at Kolonos for 22 spectators each time.
The performance “The 8th day” was staged in 220 homes in the whole of Athens. The performance hosted and was hosted. It could be played in anybody’s living room, but you could always visit it in any living room it was being played. It traveled to Cyprus, Salonica and Greek-speaking homes of Switzerland, and it constituted a distinct experience for those who attended each time.
In the summer of 2014 he conceives the action ”Hospital visit” and suggests it to the National Theatre, which embraces it to this day. In this action, theatre is performed in hospital rooms, always around a bed, for sick spectators, usually in their final stage. The action ”Hospital visit” counts 600 performances and keeps on.
On May 2018 he grounds the Cultural Consolational Care Organization “Person/face”, which has as its goal to make performative art accessible to spectators that on the current moment of their lives cannot come to the theatre.
He also directs performances that represent the “narrative of the good” in the era of the crisis and convey hope and braveness to the audience. Some of them are:
“Love / a trilogy about the narrative of the good”
“I am sea years old / a song about the generation gap”
On March 2018 he publishes the book “The handbook of a good clown” ( Kaleidoscope Publications ).