Between Tragedy and Horror in a risk society
Three workshops aiming at university students and artists
attempt to combine the two genres
Held by the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation
From September 17th to September 19th
Three workshops regarding Ancient Greek Drama and Contemporary Horror is organized by the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation from September 17th to September 19th., making interesting social, cultural, and historical allusions and subtle, indirect references to the challenges of the modern era. From climate change to the COVID pandemic, from terror attacks and slaughtering to the outbreak of violence the 21st century vindicates German sociologist Ulrich Beck’s approach, generating the term “risk society”.
The program aims to provide artist and university students mentorship and inclusion at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, providing unique learning experiences for those participating in the Athens workshops, as well as professional, transferable skills and publication possibilities to students presenting and contributing to the research-creation workshops.
Furthermore, the goals of the program are to publish research results in an open-access edited volume and also to reach a wider public of artists, activists, and citizens with questions of how effectively engaging these affective genres can address contemporary global crises.
These three performance-based workshops will give participants a chance to move beyond affective theories of horror and tragedy and into embodied practice. The last day will feature a four-hour forum, allowing participants to synthesize the week’s work – there will also be held a series of webinars within this same week- and find a common vocabulary across disciplinary viewpoints; this will be followed by a public performance of Euripides’ Trojan Women by the Italian company Motus; an art exhibition organized by the Cacoyannis Foundation will also be present throughout these activities. In addition to these public-facing events in Athens, two community engagement events will happen in Montreal in August, based on research-creation workshops that will apply horror aesthetics to adaptions of Sophocles’ Trachiniae and Aeschylus’s Oresteia; these performances and the performance workshops built around them will be presented free and open to the public.
The results of the workshops will be published in two main open-access venues: 1) an edited volume that strives to reach across disciplinary divides; and 2) a YouTube series that will feature both performances and talks.
For the first time in recent years, a group of 22 scholars from some of the most prestigious and Ivy League universities in the world, such as McGill University, University of British Columbia, University of California Berkley, University of California Santa Cruz, University of Edinburgh, etc. is meeting in Athens on the initiative of the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, to discuss the relevance between tragedy and horror. “Between Tragedy and Horror” will be the ninth edition in the “Ancient Drama” event series hosted by the Cacoyannis Foundation, and the first to be curated in partnership with scholars based in a Canadian institution, McGill, giving us a unique opportunity to bring Canadian perspectives on ancient Greek tragedy to a wider international audience.
Since 2012 the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation has been implementing an EU program on Ancient Drama in collaboration with acknowledged Academic Institutions, such as Stanford University, the University of Leeds, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Helsinki Academy in partnership with the Aalto College of Art and Design, la Fundación de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, the LabexArts-H2H (ArTeC) – Département Arts et Technologies de l’Image, Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis, the Forum Internationale Wissenschaft of the University of Bonn and more.
The program activates and presents interdisciplinary synergies related to Ancient Drama and aims to promote the dialogue and enhance the way ancient drama is presented through performing arts in the 21st century.
This year, the MCF is implementing the project titled “Ancient Drama: Interdisciplinary and Cross Art Approaches”, included in the Partnership Agreement 2021-2027, co-funded by the European Union.
Apply for participation in this mailing address adrama@mcf.gr.
Detailed Schedule
Tuesday, September 17th, 2024:
Workshop 1, Body Horror and Monstrosity in the Trachiniae, 16:00 – 20:00
Wednesday, September 18th, 2024:
Workshop 2, Finding the Furies in Contemporary Performance, 16:00 – 20:00
Thursday, September 19th, 2024:
Workshop 3, I am the one who will carry the fire
(Io sono quella che porterà il fuoco)16:00 – 20:00 (MOTUS Theatre group)