Trade with Greece
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enjoy her exotic, nostalgic, romantic, and sensi-
tive yet dynamic voice under the Acropolis.
Under the auspices of the
Institut Français de
Grèce.
(June 15)
International Productions
Robert Wilson – Mikhail Baryshnikov
Letter to a Man
Based on Nijinsky’s diaries
Celebrated artists Robert Wilson and Mikhail
Baryshnikov join forces to step inside the shat-
tered mind of one of the most famous dancers of
all times, Vaslav Nijinsky. Based on the iconic
dancer’s diaries, a work of art that chronicles
Nijinsky’s descent into madness, this solo per-
formance outlines the artist’s tormented sexuality
and spirituality, as well as his tempestuous rela-
tionship with impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the
founder of Ballets Russes, to whom the letter of
the title is addressed. Hal Willner’s collage-like
score brings audio excerpts of the diaries togeth-
er with songs by Tom Waits, Arvo Pärt, Henry
Mancini, and Soviet futurist composer Alexander
Mosolov. Long fascinated by Nijinsky’s diaries,
Baryshnikov, one of the greatest dancers of his
generation, dances and staggers through
Wilson’s landscape as he performs an exception-
al, moving testimony of the last lucid moments in
a man’s life. As Henry Miller wrote: “Had he not
gone to the asylum we would have had in Nijinsky
a writer equal to the dancer.”
(July 10-11-12, OLYMPIA THEATRE)
Les Particules élémentaires
by Michel Houellebecq
After dazzling the audiences of Athens Festival
2016 with his stage adaptation of Roberto
Bolaño’s “2066”, thirty-year-old Julien Gosselin,
one of the most dynamic contemporary French
directors, returns to the Athens Festival with
Michel Houellebecq’s award-winning, as well as
controversial, 1998 novel
“Les Particules élémen-
taires”
(known in English as “Atomised”).
Gosselin draws on Houellebecq’s intrinsically the-
atrical, polyphonic, postmodern style to bring the
author’s twisted take on the classic family novel to
life. Ten actors on stage play roles as both char-
acters and narrators. Live music, lighting, and the
use of videos create a universe that is otherwise
devoid of decoration. The two main characters,
sexually repressed Michel and the sex addict
Bruno, personify the decline of Western societies.
Houellebecq’s themes –the absence of love and
affection in an indifferent world– are even more
relevant today. As the director puts it: “It is obvi-
ous to me that I am, we all are, today’s version of
Michel and Bruno.” Gosselin toys with the audi-
ences’ standard expectations of character, narra-
tion, and identification, in order to present us with
a radical version of our own notions of identity.
Under the auspices of the Institut Français de
Grèce
(June 29-30, PEIRAIOS 260)
Romeo Castellucci - Societas Raffaello Sanzio
Democracy in America
In 1835, French diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville
(1805-1859) wrote a two-volume essay on the
then burgeoning democracy of the United States
of America, titled “Democracy in America.” De
Tocqueville’s essay, one of the first fundamental
texts to analyse an emerging model of democra-
cy, points to a new political vision for the West,
while at the same time implying the decline of
ancient Greek democracy and the weariness of
Robert Wilson – Mikhail Baryshnikov
