In “TITANS”, the hilarious and the serious are constantly being interchanged, and ideas on
how things should be have already been lost. Euripides Laskaridis envisions a universe older
than the world, a time of the mind where even shadows are alive and things have no set or
stable size. The tiniest of things become enormous. All time and all space can fit on stage,
and surprises, excitement, and terror all spring – without warning – from the work’s details.
Center stage stand two solitary beings playing an endless game with no apparent purpose.
Their laughter seems worrying, their worries laughable. And yet, their world is made from
the same materials, feelings and thoughts as our own. Their failures are transformed into a
defense of our own.
There is something that makes this admittedly absurd artistic language win over audiences,
wherever it may go. It does so because behind all the ridiculousness and the irony lies an
ever steadfast tenderness.
“In this work – one unique in terms of genre, quite unlike anything else – we find something that resembles the wonderment a child feels when first faced with the transformative, illusory, inventive power of theater. It’s a precious thing. […] How rare it is, how truly rare, to see a man talk about motherhood, in the first person, to literally take the subject into the body, to embody it, here with humor and exuberance, extravagance and respect. This daring approach in “TITANS”, though more discreet, is just as important as that taken to form. Hats off.”
— Nicola Arrigoni, “Sipario” (2July 2019)
“Euripides Laskaridis’ “TITANS” sticks in the mind; when the curtain falls, the images presented by this Greek choreographer and performer keep rising over and again before your eyes. […] One watches “TITANS” with the voracious appetite of someone desperate for their fill of beauty. The images and actions Euripides Laskaridis creates and performs are conceptually rooted deep inside the art of the European Renaissance, the elaborate Byzantine mosaics at Ravenna, the captivating orientalist nostalgia of Gustav Klimt. The eyes of the audience gaze on, drawn to the stage, watching the slight sway of the swing or spying reflections on the convex mirror of some Flemish painter or the contemporary Anish Kapoor. This Greek performer seems to gather iconic relics from art history and blend them into a drink that distills the melancholy experienced by a being, one that performs and carries within it the stories of an entire world.”
Tour dates:
Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy, Annecy, France : Feb 11, 2020 Feb 13, 2020
Credits
Direction, choreography & set design: Euripides Laskaridis
Performed by: Euripides Laskaridis & Dimitris Matsoukas
Costume design: Angelos Mentis
Original music & sound design: Giorgos Poulios
Lighting design: Eliza Alexandropoulou
Dramaturgy consultant: Alexandros Mistriotis
Artistic collaborators: Drossos Skotis, Diogenis Skaltsas, Simos Patieridis, NikosDragonas, Thanos Lekkas
Sound design, programming & live operation: Themistocles Pandelopoulos
Sound installation & live operation: Nikolas Kollias & Kostis Pavlopoulos
Lighting installation: Konstantinos Margas & Giorgos Melissaropoulos
Assistants to the director: Dimitris Triandafyllou & Paraskevi Lypimenou
Assistant to the set designer & the costumes designer: Ioanna Plessa
Set assistant on tour: Tzela Christopoulou
Trainee production assistants: Lisandra Caires & Samuel Esteves Querido
Co-producers coordination: Elisabeth Tsouchtidi
Production & tour manager: Maria Dourou (2017-18)
Tour managers: Simona Fremder (2018-19) & Gema Rollon Blanco (2019)
Tour technical director: Konstantinos Margas
Tour production assistant: NikosMavrakis – TooFarEast productions (2019)
Photography: Elina Giounanli & Julian Mommert
Camera operators: Stelios Keramidas, Samuel Esteves Querido & Dimitris Triandafyllou
Video trailer edited by: Euripides Laskaridis
Co-Produced by:
Athens & Epidaurus festival (gr), Théâtre de la Ville (fr), eleusis 2021 –European capitalof culture (gr), Festival Transamériques (ca), Julidans (nl), Megaron Athens concert hall(gr), ccvf Guimarães (pr) & the OSMOSIS performing arts company (gr)
Also supported by:
O espaço do tempo (pr), neon (gr), Centre Culturel Hellenique (fr), Isadora & RaymondDuncan dance research centre (gr) & Aegean airlines (gr)
Presented in collaboration with:
EDM productions – Rial & Eshelman