Athens and Epidaurus Festival: Over 200,000 spectators in 86 days of continuous action

His summer program ended last Saturday (20/8) with great success Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2022.

As the Festival press release states, this year the event’s return to normality was brilliant and the audience’s response equally impressive: 200,000 spectators in total, celebrated with their presence 86 dense days of continuous action, in Herodeion, Piraeus 260 and Epidaurus .

“If 2021 marked the restart of cultural life after the difficult months of the pandemic, this year the festival really found its normal pace, its vitality and its momentum. Seventy-seven (77) productions, of which 26 were international, were hosted in all the venues of the festival, and over 1500 artists participated in its activities, in theater, music and dance,” the announcement states.

From its world premieres to its smaller experimental productions with first-time artists, a common element in all the events of the festival was the creative coexistence of the classic with the innovative, the traditional with the innovation. In Epidaurus, the festival’s productions and its co-productions with leading stages abroad, as well as with the two state theaters of the country, as well as private productions hosted by the great Orchestra, highlighted new ways of reading the ancient drama and found themselves in conversation with performances of the Cycle “Contemporary Ancients” in the small theater of Old Epidaurus – an innovation of last year’s festival, which continued this year: assignments of works inspired by ancient drama to Greek authors.

Herodeion emerged first and foremost as a true celebration of music, covering the entire spectrum of audience preferences: from baroque music to the contemporary electronic scene, from excellent ensembles, symphony orchestras and grand operas to elite soloists, from tributes to leading Greek composers and singers to the most iconic forms of rock and jazz music. While the dance, also covering a wide range of forms and expressive possibilities, from contemporary artistic dance to the most dynamic movements of street dance, highlighted the human body, with all its fluid harmony but also its unwelcome contractions, aerial buoyancy and its gravity, its practiced cohesion and plasticity, in a privileged expression of reflection on the modern world and the human condition.

In the three stages of Piraeus 260, the program of performances reflected with a balance the international trends in Theater and Dance with very strong moments and in the Greek program, which through different stage languages, highlighted a common reflection distinct in most of them: “Utopia and dystopia”. This common theme intersected with the “Antigonisms” cycle, confirming the importance of framing the artistic program with actions that favor the exchange of views and reflection. The organization of the debate on the future of Epidavria had the same goal, as a starting point for a necessary, critical dialogue. At the same time, the opening to the younger public continued, with circles that highlighted urban culture, encouraging the public to get to know emerging artists and groups.

In addition, the creation of a living center of coexistence, which would keep viewers and creators together even after the performances, was the aim of the entire design of the exterior space, as well as the continuous action of Jazz in the Square, a twenty-day platform of musical euphoria, with free entry, which accompanied the festival throughout July, transforming the industrial setting in the square of Piraeus into a new pole of attraction for the city’s young audience.

It is worth noting, finally, that the Athens Epidaurus Festival was not limited only within its own walls. In the framework of the strategic cooperation in which the Hellenic Festival S.A. proceeded. with The Ellinikon, a rich two-day artistic activities were organized at The Ellinikon Experience Park, with lots of dancing and music and with the eye on the sea.

“This year the Festival ceremoniously renewed its bond with its old friends, all those who have been coming to celebrate at its events for years, but it also managed to attract young people, many and diverse, who seek, through the art forms served by the alive this institution, new ways to think about their relationship with the world, new reasons why life is still ‘very good and first'” concludes the announcement of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival.

RES-EMP

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