First openly gay prime minister of Greece in an opera about Orpheus

ORFEAS2021 is an adaptation of the myth of Orpheus and unfolds in the near future, as Greece’s first openly gay prime minister fights to establish an LGBTQ+ ideology, facing dilemmas such as protests citizens, attempts at revolution and church resistance.

FYTA video opera© EMST

Fluctuating between operatic melodrama, queer collage DIYthe ghosts of the 80s and the aesthetics of virtual reality, the characters of the video opera reflect on political purity, alternative history, institutional criticism and identity politics, while raising the question of whether a work of art can be queer *, the Greek edition writes in the announcement of the event news247.

The plot was inspired by the story of the new national hero of Greece, Zach Kostopoulos, a gay activist who died during an attempted robbery of a jewelry store in 2018 in the center of Athens, the work is dedicated to his memory.

More about participants

FYTA is an artistic duo, which works with performance, sound and text. It consists of Phil Hieropoulos and Phoebe Dussos. Since 2012, they have participated in a number of events as performers and curators. They were founding members of the queer label Fytini (with over 30 releases to their credit), the performance platform Sound Acts (through which they introduced over 80 artists to the Athenian public), and many other projects within the Athens queer creative community. They collaborated among others with the School of Fine Arts of Athens, ATOPOS cvc, the Freud Museum in London, the Athens Biennale, and presented texts and speeches at academic institutions in Greece and Europe.

FYTA video opera© EMST

Rhea Walden has a PhD in philosophy, film theorist and director. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Digital Arts and Cinema at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Walden’s research focuses on avant-garde and experimental cinema and film education. He taught at the Athens School of Fine Arts, at the film department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, at the University of Thessaly, etc. He is a co-author of the script for the feature film The Thief or Reality (2001) by Antoinette Angelidi, which was shown at international film festivals and museums. Just finished her first full-length documentary, Obsessive Clock in the Place of Reality, a portrait of Angelidi.

Dana Papakristou – doctor of aesthetics, artist, musicologist and art theorist. She studied advanced theory at the Hellenic Conservatory, piano and clarinet at the Attico Conservatory, and graduated in Musicology from the University of Athens. He teaches at the University of Thessaly at the Department of Culture, Creative Media and Industries. artistic activity papakristou combines media and artistic idioms, sound and soundscapes in public space, she has participated in geo-located projects in various cities in Greece and abroad. He is one of the founders of the Akoo.o group and the research center To Aesthate. She composed experimental works, as well as music for theatrical performances, dance performances and films.

Announcement

The screening and discussion of the film will take place on Thursday, February 23, 2023 at 20.30.
Free admission with tickets to be distributed half an hour before the start of the event.
The film will be shown in Greek. The length of the film is 110′. More about emst.gr.

* Queer is a collective term used to refer to a person whose sexuality and/or gender identity is different from the general public.

Originally meaning “weird” or “unusual”, the word “queer” was used as an insult to people who were attracted to or had relationships with people of the same gender. By the late 1980s, queer activists began to appropriate the word, deliberately choosing a provocative and politically radical alternative.

Since the 2000s, the term “queer” has been increasingly used to describe a wide range of deviant sexual and gender identities and beliefs. Academic disciplines such as queer theory and queer studies jointly oppose gender binarism, normativity, and the lack of intersectionality. Queer art, queer cultural and queer political groups are examples of contemporary expressions of queer identities.

PS Judging by the rave reviews from critics, the video opera is predicted to have a future, like the series “Servant of the People” in Ukraine, anticipating the appearance of a real character on the political scene in Greece.

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