The Great Tamer – Holland Festival

A human is being dug out, it is worshipped, captured in stone, cannibalised, and searched for. The Greek artist Dimitris Papaioannou employs the human body in most of his work. In his physical theatre – without text or music – he looks for the essence of humanity, beyond the body. Papaioannou does not see himself as a dancer or a choreographer, but as a visual artist – a painter on the stage who uses the human body in all its versatility. He takes minimal resources to create worlds of astounding beauty, to imbue life with the magic we so desperately need. In the festival programme book, this performance was announced with the working title New Creation. Programme

Dimitris Papaioannou is making his debut at the Holland Festival with a new, as-yet-untitled performance. Papaioannou gained international renown for his distinctive style of physical movement and imagery. These performances can relate to Greek mythology, such as Still Life (2014), inspired by the myth of

Sisyphus: the man who the gods condemned to push a boulder up a hill for eternity. In this new work, a group of people dig up a living body, like archaeologists unearthing a memory or adventurers discovering a new country. The body is admired, embraced, idealised and cannibalised. But also transformed, copied, cloned, cared for and cherished. The body is lost, found and sought again.

Papaioannou is a trained painter and visual artist. Since 1986, he has devoted himself to the creation of extreme image theatre, initially with his influential ensemble Edafos Dance Theatre (1986-2002) and since 2002 as an independent artist. His great, symbolic work is a hybrid of experimental dance, movement theatre and performance art, strongly influenced by Robert Wilson. In the 1990s, he also presented himself as an illustrator of subversive highly homoerotic comics. In the theatre, all of his interests came together, Papaioannou explains, 'As a painter, it was somewhere to paint pictures. As a cartoonist, it was somewhere to tell stories. And as a performer, it was a context in which I was able to physically and emotionally express myself. I also discovered that live action presented me with the opportunity to communicate directly.'

This new work builds on four fields of research that Papaioannou has been involved with since 2009: movement, sound, light and space. The human body forms the basis of Papaioannou's work. In his physical theatre – without text or music, but full of symbolism – he seeks the essence of being human. Papaioannou sees himself as a painter on the stage, who makes use of the human body in all its diversity. He uses minimum resources to create worlds of a stunning beauty, in order to enrich life with a theatrical magic.

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creation Dimitris Papaioannou visualisation Dimitris Papaioannou direction Dimitris Papaioannou cast Pavlina Andriopoulou, Costas Chrysafidis, Ektor Liatsos, Ioannis Michos, Evangelia Randou, Kalliopi Simou, Drossos Skotis, Christos Strinopoulos, Yorgos Tsiantoulas, Alex Vangelis set design + art direction in collaboration with Tina Tzoka artistic collaborator for costumes Aggelos Mendis lighting designed in collaboration with Evina Vassilakopoulou Giwrgos Poulious artistic collaborator for sound sound design and operation Kostas Michopoulos music Johan Strauss jr., An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 music adaptation Stephanos Droussiotis sculpture design Nectarios Dionysatos costume - props painting Maria Illia creative - executive producer + assistant director Tina Papanikolaou Direction assistant Stephanos Droussiotis rehearsal director Pavlina Andriopoulou technical manager Manolis Vitsaxakis stage manager Dinos Nikolaou assistant sound engineer Nikos Kollias assistant to the set designer - set painter Mary Antonopoulou assistants to the sculptor Maria Papaioannou + Konstantinos Kotsis Tzela Christopoulou production assistant tour manager + international relations Julian Mommert executive production assistant Kali Kavvatha production Onassis Cultural Centre Athens coproduction CULTURESCAPES Greece 2017 (Zwitserland), Dansens Hus Sweden, EdM Productions, Holland Festival, National Performing Arts Center-National Theater & Concert Hall | NPAC-NTCH ..., Seoul Performing Arts Festival | SPAF (Korea), Théâtre de la Ville - Paris (France), Festival d’Avignon, Fondazione Campania dei Festival – Napoli Teatro Festival Italia executive producer 2WORKS with the support of ALPHA BANK Air Carrier Sponsor AEGEAN AIRLINES

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