glossa [γlósa]

A crowd approaches from near and far to nowhere.
People come alone as strangers, from unknown motherlands to meet in a common place, a no man’s land.
As if within a dream, a new world begins almost without memory. 

At first there will be silence, familiar and unfamiliar languages will follow, while in between the body will speak its own language incessantly. Little by little, voices will intermingle and together will remember strange names of angels and gods, will remember feelings, will have the desire to fabricate the world from the beginning.
ow does the world begin? With a name.
They will invent a language of their own, they will give a name to what is nameless, they will imagine the co-existence of different languages in only one word. They will embrace trees, mimic the bird’s language, dance in the silence, remember a childhood game, they will pause to listen to the voices of others.
What belong to us? Where do we belong?
They will be strangers, but they will remember their story through a piece of paper. Nameless, they will read a beloved one’s name on a piece of paper.
And a poem will take them on a journey to old homelands, imaginary, lost.
Every identity will have been left behind, they will touch the ground and it won’t belong to them, they will touch the ground where they belong. They will eventually have a name.
They don’t return, they don’t leave.
They will walk down to a clearing to gaze at the moon, they will unify earth and sky with a glance, they will nod on a pentagram what no language can say and they will then spread out to the new world.
They will come and go in silence.

Choreography – Direction: Angeliki Sigourou
Performers: Angeliki Aggeletaki, Afedia Kanellopoulou, Sonia Karagiannidou, Christos Kollias, Xenia Kottaki, Nabil el Barrage, Eftihia Panopoulou, Panagiotis Skiadas, Vivi Sklia, Marianna Stathaki, Antigoni Choundri, Ariadni Psychogiopoulou
Sound Editing – Music: Yiannis Vrizakis
Poster and programme design: Vivi Sklia
Programme translation in English: Xenia Kottaki, Eftihia Panopoulou
Photography: Loukia Batsi, Dimitris Vamvakousis, Seaway Productions, SensoReye Production
Video: Vaggelis Tzanis, SensoReye Productions

For the needs of the performance, the team originally created and used the following material:
Invented words: the team invented new words in order to describe unnamed situations and circumstances as well as properties that also lack designation.
Paraetymologies: the team came up with the meaning of words by searching their origins in all the languages of the world following a completely unorthodox way.
Interviews: the team composed questionnaires about language and interviewed 51 people, 29 women and 22 men.
Hildegard von Bingen: words are used from the language invented by the German Benedictine abbess and composer, who alleged that she received it from angelic creatures, to create audio material.
Sign language: passages from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem Mural were rendered in sign language and used as the foundation for composing kinetic material.

Music:
Etendue – Steven Brown & Benjamin Lew 
Hildegard von Bingen – O virtus sapientiae. Voices: Motectum Vocal Ensemble. 
Bamako ou ailleurs – Steven Brown & Benjamin Lew 
Proverb – Steve Reich 
Michael Nyman – Miserere Paraphrase
Moments – Steven Brown & Benjamin Lew 
Mural – Le trio Joubran & Mahmoud Darwish  
Moonlight Sonata (First part) – Ludwig van Beethoven/Maurizio Pollini

Texts:
The extract heard in the performance is from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem Mural (جدارية):
Translation from Arabic to/into Greek: Angeliki Sigourou
Translation – Rendition from Greek to English: Yiannis Smarnakis

Voices:
Arabic text: Mahmoud Darwish
English text: Eftihia Panopoulou
Greek text: Yiannis Smarnakis

Greek sign language instruction: Stamatis Benetas, Maria Kolokotroni
Poem’s Mural rendition in Greek sign language: Maria Kolokotroni

Grateful thanks to the interviewees, whose precious contribution was essential to our performance.
Special thanks to the Hermoupolis charitable organization (Old people’s home of Saint Panteleimon) who kindly allocated the area of Chroussa Kataskinosis.

Akropoditi Dancetheatre – August 2018
25, 26, 27, 28 August 2018 Chroussa – Kataskinosi, Syros

With the support of Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports