🔵 🔴 🟡 Course description

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to appreciate the complex character of a theatrical performance and interpret it, taking into account all the elements that make it up. Additionally, they will be able to determine how aesthetic choices contribute to the overall production of meaning in a performance. They will also be able to distinguish different types of performances, such as performances dominated by speech, image, improvisation or interactivity, and compare them. Through the analysis of disparate examples, students will appreciate the range of trends prevailing in contemporary theater and will acquire the ability to recognize them in performances they see or prepare themselves. On a more philosophical level, the experimental contemporary trends discussed in the course train students to develop arguments about the nature of theatre as well.

🔵 🔴 🟡 Theory (3 hours)

1. Introduction I - Theatre Dictionary (options)
2. Introduction II - Theatre Dictionary (options)
3. Introduction III - Theatre Dictionary (options)
4. Polytope of Mycenae by I. Xenakis (1978) - Robert Wilson, Les Fables de La Fontaine I
5. Polytope of Mycenae by I. Xenakis (1978) - Robert Wilson, Les Fables de La Fontaine II
6. Polytope of Mycenae by I. Xenakis (1978) - Robert Wilson, Les Fables de La Fontaine III
7. Antoine Vitez, Electra / Tadashi Suzuki, Electra I
8. Antoine Vitez, Electra / Tadashi Suzuki, Electra II
9. Antoine Vitez, Electra / Tadashi Suzuki, Electra II
10. Educational excursion to watch a performance in Athens
11. Oral presentations in class related to the topic of the 2nd assignment. I
12. Oral presentations in class related to the topic of the 2nd assignment. II
13. Summing Up

With a focus on contemporary theatre, the course raises students' awareness of how to read a play. He also introduces them to the heterogeneous directorial approaches that distinguish contemporary theatre with examples from the Greek and international arena, including artists such as R. Wilson, T. Suzuki, Iannis Xenakis, A. Mnouchkine and Sophie Calle. A performance can "serve" the text, undermine it or be improvising. What is the relationship between classical performances where the actor has a central role and others where the actor is part of an almost visual composition, such as in the Picture Theater? What is the role of the audience in a performance? There is a great distance between performances where the audience is a passive recipient and new, collective forms, where the audience becomes a co-creator. We will also be concerned with issues related to the relationship between theatre and life or the other arts. The purpose of the course is to encourage students to get to know better and participate in the theatrical life of our time.

Review language: Greek

🔵 🔴 🟡 Evaluation method:

• 10% Short Answer Questions
• 50% Essay Development Questions
• 20% Public Presentation
• 20% Oral Examination

The evaluation method is formative and inferential

• Face-to-face
• Use of PowerPoint and audio-visual examples (13 lectures)
• Use of ICT in teaching
• Use of ICT when communicating with students.
• Learning process through an electronic platform.
• Communication with students via email and through an electronic chat space in the e-class.

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🔵 🔴 🟡 Course Textbooks [Eudoxus]

• Abramovic, Marina (2010). The Artist is Present. Exhibition Catalogue. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
• Adamopoulou, Areti (2014). "Introduction to the History of Performance" in Adamopoulou (ed.) Body Language. Notes on the performance. University of Ioannina.
• Aronson, A. (2000). American Avant-garde Theater: A History. London and New York: Routledge.
• Varopoulou, E. (2002). The live theater. Athens: Agra.
• Brook, P. (2016). The empty space. Koan
• Carlson, M. 1996). Performance: A Critical Introduction. London and New York: Routledge.
• Delgado, M. & Heritage, P. (1996). In Contact with the Gods? Directors Talk Theater. Manchester University Press.
• Kiernander, A. (1993). Ariane Mnouchkine and the Theatre du Soleil. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Lehmann,Hans-Thies, Postdramatic Theatre, London: Routledge, 2006.
• Kotzamani M. (2021) "Emily Jacir and Sophie Calle: repression, transgression and collectivity in contemporary art", in Theater and Otherness. Proceedings of the Sixth Panhellenic Theatre Conference Printed / e-edition University of Peloponnese
• Kotzamani, M. (2017) “Under the starry night: Darkness, Community and Theatricality in Iannis Xenakis' s Mycenae Polytopon” in Theatre in the Dark: Shadow, Gloom and Blackout in Contemporary Theatre. Bloomsbury.
• Mitter, Sh. & Shevtsova, M. (2005). Fifty Key Theatre Directors. London and New York: Routledge.
• Papazoglou, E. (2014). The face of mourning. Sophocles' Electra between the text and the performance. Polis.
• Patsalidis, S. (2012). Theater and Globalization. Athens: Papazisis.
• Patsalidis, S. (2004). From representation to performance. Athens: Ellinika Grammata.
• Shevtsova, M. (2007). Robert Wilson. London and New York: Routledge.
• Suzuki T. (2024) Culture is the body. Texts
• Suzuki, T. (1990). The way of acting. Nick Hern Books.
• Tsatsoulis, D. (2011). Image dialog. Athens: Papazisis.
• Tsatsoulis, D. Western hegemonic "paradigm" and intercultural theater. Papazisis Publications, Athens, 2017.

Related scientific journals

• Theater Research International
• New Theatre Quarterly
• TDR
• PAJ
• Theatre/Yale School of Drama
• Theater
• Tent