The GNO Learning & Participation will travel to Northern Evia, specifically to Limni and Loutra, Aidipsos, to present a three-day programme of events on the 18th, 19th, and 21st of July 2024. Admission to these events will be free for the public. The residents of these Municipalities, as well as visitors from the surrounding area, will have the chance to watch Stratis Vogiatzis and Dimitris Kourtis’ documentary That Day, as well as to enjoy two opera evenings featuring beloved arias and duets from well-known operas performed by sopranos Elena Kelesidi and Maria Mitsopoulou from the Greek National Opera. The three-day programme of events is part of the second cycle of educational and artistic activities of the Melisma programme, funded by the Ministry of Culture.

Having already been screened at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (Open Horizons Category) and at the GNO Alternative Stage, the documentary That Day returns to where it started its journey. It is a cinematic portrayal of Melisma, a series of educational and artistic activities that were conducted by the Greek National Opera in Northern Evia, following the devastating wildfires of 2021. The documentary also uncovers the landscape through the lens of myths and stories. The directors kept a close eye on the creative development of the dance and music narrative Endless Land, which explores the themes of destruction and rebirth and was featured for the first time in July 2023, in Kechries, Evia. At the same time, they wandered through both the charred and revitalized terrain, walking along trails and seeking out myths and stories. They got carried away in adventurous encounters with the guardians of this land: a carpenter who rebuilds his burnt carpentry workshop, a woodcarver who carves scorched tree trunks, transforming destruction into new and peculiar forms, and a horse whisperer who converses with animals. The documentary will be screened on Thursday, the 18th of July 2024, at 20.45 at the open air cinema theatre of Limni “Elymnion”, and on Sunday, the 21st of July 2024 at 21.00 at Cine Apollon in Loutra, Aidipsos.

The renowned protagonists from the Greek National Opera Elena Kelesidi and Maria Mitsopoulou will offer us two unique opera evenings featuring beloved arias and duets from the global repertoire on Friday 19 July 2024 at 20.45 at the Heroes Square in Limni, and on Sunday 21 July 2024 at 22.00 at Cine Apollon in Loutra, Aidipsos. Marilena Souri will be accompanying them on the piano.

Soprano Elena Kelesidi has starred in numerous productions and artistic events. Moreover, she has performed numerous leading roles at the world’s most prestigious theatres, including the Vienna State Opera, New York Metropolitan Opera, and Opera de Bastille, as well as in important venues in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Amsterdam, Zurich and Tokyo, and significant festivals.

Soprano Maria Mitsopoulou has performed innumerable roles and is always expanding her repertoire. Furthermore, she has collaborated with the Athens and Thessaloniki Concert Halls, the Athens State Orchestra, the Camerata, the Athens Epidaurus Festival, and the Orchestra of Colours. Abroad she has performed in concerts in Lima (Peru), Parma, Turin, London, and Catania.

Pianist Marilena Souri has given solo recitals and chamber music concerts in many European countries. She has also collaborated as a soloist with the LUCA Chamber Orchestra and Sinfonietta Hellenica.


Learning & Participation Department of the Greek National Opera

The Greek National Opera visits Northern Evia

18, 19 and 21 July 2024

 

Screening of the documentary That Day

Directed by: Stratis Vogiatzis, Dimitris Kourtis

18 July 2024 · Starts at: 20.45 · Open air cinema | Cinema theatre of Limni “Elymnion

21 July 2024 · Starts at: 21.00 · Cine Apollon in Loutra, Aidipsos

 

Opera evening

Featuring:  Elena Kelesidou, Maria Mitsopoulou, Piano: Marilena Souri

19 July 2024 · Starts at: 20.45 · Heroes Square, Limni

21 July 2024 · Starts at: 22.00 · Cine Apollon in Loutra, Aidipsos

 

For the events taking place at the cinema theater of Limni “Elymnion” and Cine Apollon in Loutra, Aidipsos, admission will be free upon priority vouchers that will be distributed one hour prior to the start of the shows at the cinema entrances.

 

The Opera Evening on the Heroes Square in Limni on 19 July 2024 will be held without entrance tickets.

 

In collaboration 

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Melisma is funded by the Ministry of Culture

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GNO Learning and Participation Lead Donor

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This year the GNO Learning & Participation Department is returning to Skiathos with an educational programme aimed at the island’s secondary education schools. The goal of this year’s series of workshops, which will last throughout April, is to quickly introduce children to the process of preparing a music theatre performance. This will be achieved through their meaningful collaboration with music professionals and active involvement in the rehearsals. During this creative journey, children will work together and co-create, sing, play, and learn how to interact with the audience.

The programme will come complete with the creation and presentation of an interactive musical performance featuring traditional folk and modern Greek songs, music and body percussion. The performance will take place on 26 April, at a venue that will be announced soon. The songs that will be heard in the performance will have been worked upon during the programme, and will revolve around themes like love, goals, dreams, and the beauty of youthful pursuits.

Planning, implementation: Antonis Vasileiadis (European percussion teacher, composer, music producer, performer), Giorgos Kasavetis (percussion composer)

 

In cooperation with the Municiplaity of Skiathos

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GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor

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Artistic workshops cycle in Northern Evia

 

From September 2022 and for nearly a year, the Caravan Project followed Melisma, the year-long cycle of educational and artistic activities for persons of all ages that was realized in the wider region of Northern Evia, recording the workshops and personal stories of the people who took part in them. The Project tracked the compositional processes of a collective music-dance narration, which was turned into a performance titled Topos Ateliotos (Endless Land) and presented in Kechries, Northen Evia, on Sunday 16 July 2023, as well as on the GNO Alternative Stage on Sunday 17 September 2023.

The members of the film crew wandered across burnt-down and reborn areas, walking on trails and seeking legends and stories. They let themselves get carried away in adventurous encounters with the guardians of this land: a beekeeper who insistently harvests honey in the burnt forest, a monk who serenely reminisces on the miracle that saved the monastery from fire, a carpenter who reopened his carpentry shop, a retsina (variety of Greek wine) producer who is concerned about his future, a wood carver who carves burnt tree trunks transmuting the catastrophe into reborn, peculiar figurines, a horse whisperer who talks with animals.

The documentary composes an unseen geography of diverse narratives that shed light upon catastrophe and rebirth, challenging us to ponder on the symbiotic relationship between nature and civilisation.

Programme coordinator: Leonidas Panagopoulos

Implementation: Caravan Project (Stratis Vogiatzis, Dimitris Kourtis)

Presentation: Spring 2024

 

The programme was subsidized by the Ministry of Culture

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GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor 

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Dance workshop for children aged 4 to 12 years

 

What came first, music or movement? How can movement turn into sound? Does music dance? How can music motivate individuals? 


GNO Learning & Participation invites children aged 4 to 12 years along with their parents to immerse themselves into an entertaining exploration of the qualities, senses and textures of movement triggered by the power of music. With the accompaniment of Kostas Yaxoglou on the piano and Alex Bove on the cello, Vitoria Kotsalou will urge participants to explore the relationship between music and movement and co-create their own choreography inspired by classical music and opera pieces.

Dancing alongside their parents, children will explore the different musical motifs that come together to form a music piece, will listen to each other through their bodies and the rhythm, and will discover the innumerable games than can result from the creative process and cultivate active listening and movement skills.

The workshop will be conducted over five weekly two-hour meetings and will come complete with the presentation of the artistic result in front of a live audience made up of the participants’ guests.

 

Planning/Implementation: Vitoria Kotsalou (dancer, choreographer)

Featuring the musicians: Kostas Yaxoglou (piano), Alex Bove (cello)

Age group: 4-12 years

Dates & time: 15, 22, 29 January, 5 and 12 February 2024, 18.00-20.00

You can submit your applications from 30 December 2023 to 10 January 2024 exclusively via the form you will find here.   

 

GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor 

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Choreography workshop for children aged 10 to 12 years

In collaboration with the GNO Ballet

 

The new amazing workshop Do You Choreograph? is coming to offer children aged 10 to 12 years a singular music and movement experience full of emotions made of dance figures.

Classical ballet and the classical technique are based on terms and names well-known to professionals, e.g. grand jeté, pirouette, assemblé etc. But what happens when these terms get mixed with emojis depicting different mental states (joy, sorrow, anger, etc.)? A ballet dancer will have to perform all these instructions the moment each kid will choose the term or the emotion they want to be depicted.

A unique condition that will motivate children to unleash their imagination so as to improvise and choreograph human emotions under the guidance of a professional dancer. The workshop’s goal is to help participants acquire personal experience in the making of a choreography and understand dance as an inexhaustible way of expressing emotions.

 

Planning / Implementation: GNO Learning & Participation Department – GNO Ballet (Giannis Mitrakis, Marita Nikolitsa)

Age group: 10 to 12  

Dates & hours: Sunday 10 March 2024

Hours: 10.00 - 11.30, 12.00 - 13.30

 

Applications open on: Monday 19 February 2024

Application deadline: Friday 1 March 2024

Applications can be submitted exclusively via the form you will find here

 

GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor 

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Guitar Express returns again this year from the GNO Learning & Partcipation. Aiming at expression through music and using guitar, voice and songs as tools, the beloved workshop continues for the sixth year to explore new paths of knowledge and creativity, bringing back to the fore stories and songs from the past. The program, being a pleasant and relaxing detour to the routine of everyday life, includes weekly face-to-face musical meetings during which participants cultivate their musical perception, practice relaxation of body and mind, while studying and understanding the subject. 

 

Planning/Implementation: Kiki Kerzeli

Scientific consultant: Ioanna Etmektsoglou

Day & Time: every Tuesday & Wednesday, 11.00 - 13.00

 

GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor 

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Interdisciplinary workshops for special education schools, teenagers, students with or without visual/hearing disability, and special or non-special education teachers

With interpretation in Greek Sign Language

What shape should the melody have? How does the circle sound and how does the square sound? Can rice paper play music? Does an everyday object have rhythm? Can I describe my favorite song with a piece of wire? In how many different ways can I tell the same story? If the warm and cold of colors were my body parts, what color would my dance be?

With kinetic, audio and visual games, we awaken our senses and develop communication tools that help us connect. By supporting and complementing each other, we create an artistic, experiential experience of inclusion.

The new cycle of interdisciplinary workshops Moving Soundscapes is aimed at special education schools, teenage students with or without visual/hearing disability, and special or non-special education teachers, and has multiple goals: to encourage the participation of teenagers with disability in artistic activities, enhance the self-efficacy of teenagers with or without disability,  support inclusive education through non-verbal communication, cultivate collegiality within and without the school setting, provide inclusive learning tools, empower special and non-special education teachers, and raise awareness on issues of disability and art.

Using physical-experiential education through movement and improvisation exercises, musical tools of coordination and visual practices as their main instrument, the workshops will attempt to develop participants’ kinesthetic skills and expressivity through the enhancement of the mechanisms of reception, processing and composition of stimuli, regardless of the extent to which their senses are functional. Participants will understand the multisensory perception of knowledge by exploring the various ways, in which meanings/stimuli become perceived, and will discover the importance of physicality as a means of communication and dialogue.

Moving Soundscapes will be conducted in two phases: the first will be realized in schools, and the second on the premises of the Greek National Opera with experiential workshops, both for students and educators, as well as with meetings for educators with the goal of collecting feedback while also exploring with them theoretical approaches to inclusive techniques.

Planning/Implementation: Yiota Peklari, Vassia Zorbali,

Scientific associate: Natasa Chanta-Martin

Greek Sign Language Interpretation: Androniki Xanthopoulou

 

All Together at the Opera is sponsored by

alphabank

 

GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor 

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Electroacoustic composition workshops

In collaboration with the National Library of Greece

 

In what ways can a text be transmuted into a soundscape? What process can convert the two-dimensional pages of a book into the multi-dimensional soundscape that is composed in the reader’s mind? How can an artist turn printed works into a sound experience? These are some of the questions that will be raised in the new cycle of electroacoustic composition workshops titled Latent Space, having as its starting point the power of written word to trigger the creation of a variety of artistic products that can reshape/recompose its content.

The programme is aimed at young artists and invites them to a creative adventure of sensory experiences based on music and the art of sound, with the goal of bringing out the constant interaction between philosophy, legend, and musical creation. Inspired by the literature on Richard Wagner’s emblematic opera Die Walküre, which will be presented in March 2024 in the Stavros Niarchos Hall, participants will use written word as their primary material and will attempt to turn the landscapes and the events described in texts of their choice into their own pieces of acoustic music. The resulting compositions will be presented on the GNO Alternative Stage in June 2024.

This educational programme brings out the vital space that has been historically provided by books to the arts, and at the same time, the special importance of the co-habitation of the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera under the same roof. The programme is realized with the collaboration of these two organisations.

Planning/Implementation: Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris

Scientific associate: Themelis Glynatsis

 

Bio

Thanos Polymeneas-Liontiris is a composer, sound artist and educator. He obtained a BA in Double Bass, and a BA in Electronic Music Composition from the Rotterdam Conservatoire, while following courses at the Institute of Sonology (Royal Conservatoire of The Hague) and at IRCAM (France). He continued with two MA studies: in Fine Arts (Spain) and in Creative Education (UK).

He did his PhD research at University of Sussex, being fully funded with a CHASE-AHRC scholarship. His PhD research has been awarded as one of the most innovative in the field of Art and Technology by the Leonardo Academic Journal (MIT Press). He teaches continuously in Higher Education since 2011 (Falmouth University, University of Sussex, University of Brighton, Ionian University). Since 2019 he teaches at the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens. Since 2012 he is a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

His works have been presented, at among others: Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Holland Festival, Todays Arts, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Modern Body Festival, Kalamata International Dance Festival, The Athens Concert Hall, Onassis Foundation, Tectonics Festival, Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean.

 

Programme starts on: Thursday 21 Μarch 2024

Dates: Thursdays 21, 28 March, 4, 11, 18, 25 April, 9, 16, 23, 30 May, 4 and 5 June 2024

Presentation date: 6 June 2024

The selection of participants will be made after an open call that will be announced a month prior to the start of the workshops. 

 

In collaboration with

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GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor 

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Dance performance and movement workshop for parents and children

 

When the body becomes voice, all destinations seem possible.

Pie in the Sky lands on the GNO Alternative Stage and becomes the starting point for a singular artistic experience that will take younger and older audiences by storm.  

Pie in the Sky is a modern dance work, a duet that will be performed onstage by choreographer and dancer Georgia Vardarou along with the daughter Myrto Sanchis Vardarou, followed by an original movement workshop for children, mothers and fathers, on the GNO Alternative Stage. Right after the end of the show, participants will turn into protagonists, through modern dance techniques proposed by the two dancers, and will be urged to approach movement as a means of expression, communication and externalization of emotions, but also as a mechanism of activating hope and strength. At the same time, through the participatory process, they will get to know up close how a performance of this genre is structured.

* Pie in the Sky was created by Georgia Vardarou and her daughter on the occasion of the curfew imposed during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Confined, between our living room and a small cultural center in the nearby village, we began to create and dance, letting our imagination wander across the universe. Dark days would alternate with days full of astral light and the ceilings would brim with planets and distant stars. From time to time the hope of a possible perfect world would be born up there. Endless, innermost hopes for the future. Yet, maybe we became immobilized looking at the foregone light of these celestial entities. By creating and dancing, the stage world activates us once again with doses of hope and strength.

— Georgia Vardarou

Planning / Implementation: Georgia Vardarou (choreographer, dancer)

Age group: 6 to 9 year-olds

Dates: 25, 26 May 2024

Place: GNO Alternative Stage

Georgia Vardarou graduated from the National School of Dance KSOT) in Greece and then from P.A.R.T.S. in Belgium with the support of the first scholarship from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (ΙΚΥ). As a dancer she has worked with Salva Sanchis, Marc Vanrunxt, Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt, Lance Gries and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker  / Rosas. As a choreographer she focuses on individual movement and the content that this carries. She created Hardcore Research on Dance, Phenomena, New Narratives and Why should it be more desirable for green fire balls to exist than not which have been presented in various venues such as: Dance Umbrella (London), ImpulsTanz (Vienna), Juliana (Amsterdam), Athens Epidaurus Festival, Festival Salmons (Barcelona), Springdance (Utrecht), Kaaistudio’s (Brussels), STUK (Leuven), Schowburg (Amsterdam), Les Brigittines (Brussels) etc. She lived in Brussels for 13 years. In 2017 she relocated to Barcelona. Her work is produced by Kunst/Werk.

 

GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor 

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The Intercultural Orchestra continues its journey across world music and further enriches its palette of traditions, styles and timbres. Having evolved into a high-class orchestra from 2018 to this day, this year too, it will create new musical experiences with the steady goal of bringing out music as a language of communication and connection among people. In this year’s season, the orchestra acquires new members and expands its exploration to an even greater gamut of musical traditions. Moreover, it confirms its participation in Greek National Opera’s Sacred Music Festival and will bid 2023 farewell with a singular concert on Tuesday 19 December 2023 at Parnassos Literary Society.

 

Orchestra conductor: Harris Lambrakis

Rehearsals start on: Monday 9 October

Day & hours of rehearsals: Mondays, 18.00-21.00

 

 

GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor 

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