PERFORMING CRISIS IN GREEK THEATRE: SCENOGRAPHIC STRATEGIES AS DRAMATURGIES OF CRISIS

Abstract

This essay will investigate a series of performances in Greece that showcase the theme of crisis discussed through the particular frame of their expanded scenographic strategies as dramaturgies of crisis. This expanded scenography is not restricted to politics and aesthetics of scenographic representation extending well beyond traditional staging paradigms to aspects that reinstate the emergence of social realities and a fundamentally social conception of space. Indicatively, this includes strategies like introducing various charged elements from lived experi-ence and contemporary visual culture, as well as conflictual aesthetics of the crisis and visual and spatial dramaturgies of the precarious. Sce-nographic dramaturgies of crisis seem to thrive on new spatial perfor-mance forms that directly interact with social realities and real spaces (like site-specific performance), while they mobilize a renewed address to found, shared public space putting to use strategies of participation. In this context of the crisis, the widespread multimedia idioms and the proliferation of video and cinematic idioms are also notable. Perfor-mances that thematize aspects of the crisis, such as Revolt Athens (2016), and the twin site-specific performances built with a core topographical address, Tea Time Europe (2014-15) and Eat Time Europe (2016) will be an-alyzed as key case studies to exemplify and further contextualize their scenographic approaches as content and context-oriented formulations, as visual and spatial dramaturgies that provide us with an entryway into performing crisis.