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Don Quixote, Night March in the City of Volos
29/11/2011

Greesis #7
Blitz Theatre Group
Don Quixote
Night March in the City of Volos

Tuesday 29 November 2011
Departure time: 20.00
Point of Departure: Entrance, Department of Architecture, Pedion Areos, Volos

blitz theatre group CV
blitz theatre group was formed in October, 2004 in Athens by Yiorgos Valais, Angeliki Papoulia and Christos Passalis.
Till then, the members of the team had studied drama and had worked in various ensembles.
blitz theatre group was formed, based on the following principles

  • the common faith that theatre is a field where people should meet each other in the most essential way and exchange ideas and not a field for virtuosity and ready made truths.
  • their need to find an answer to the questions what society asks and needs from art today and what theatre means in the dawn of the 21th century
  • the equality of the members as far as conception, writing, direction and dramaturgy are concerned and the belief that everything is under doubt, that nothing must be taken for granted, neither in theatre nor in life.

Their goal, their orientation, their vision is towards a form that could possibly renovate theatre. To do that, they chose the (main) modern stream of combination of arts and crafts in the theatrical field. This was a way that enabled them to search new paths as far as dramaturgy, acting, playwriting, narration, representation are concerned.
In 2006, the group presents the performance ‘motherland’. A performance based on a world map, with elements of interaction between spectators and performers.
In 2007, the group presents Joy Division and New Order. A simulation of a weird game show where the spectators play the part of a jury. The contestants are two divorced couples that try to solve the dead-ends of their relationship, reading each other’s letters in public, dancing, singing, cursing or being violent.
In 2009, blitz co-direct Goethe’s Faust. It’s the first classical text the group is staging, proposing a new reading of Walpurgis Night. Later this year, the group presents ‘The House’. 7 performers meet in real time with around 20 spectators in their real residence in Athens.
In the summer of 2009, blitz present the performance KATERINI. It’s a 5-hour performance that takes place in a two-storey building, and more specifically, in a roof in the centre of Athens and 6 rooms, where the performers meet with the spectators, one by one, by appointment.
In 2010, the group presents Guns! Guns! Guns!. It’s the return of the group in a conventional theatrical stage where a review of the 20th century is taking place. A delirious review based on the idea of revolution and the question how could one change the world.
Later this year, blitz present CINEMASCOPE, a documentary about the last 9 days of the world. This time, the performance takes place out in the street. The spectators wear wireless headphones and are isolated by the spectacle behind a glass wall. They watch the characters of CINEMASCOPE during the last 9 days of their lives along with the real passers-by who participate in the performance, without even knowing it.
At the end of 2010, the group presents GALAXY. A 4-hour performance in a garage with 8 performers and one endless list of persons, ideas, words, movements, objects that have died, that have been lost or forgotten.

Our works invite the spectators to share an experience with us, challenging them to free themselves from the conventional part of a passive voyer. To a certain point, we are covered by the definition of post-dramatic theatre as Lehman has put it. ‘Presence rather than enactment, sharing rather than ready-made experiences, procedure rather than result and stimulus rather than information’, a motto from the Venice Biennale, ‘more ethics, less aesthetics’ and the phrase ‘aesthetics vs. anaesthetics’.

blitz theatre group has presented their works in BIOS Cultural Centre, in National Theatre, in Athens and Epidaurus Festival and in various European festivals.
The group is funded by the Greek Ministry of Culture since their first production. Below is a brief list of the productions the group has conceived, written and directed.

  • • motherland bios cultural center, Syros, Herakleion, Giessen, Aix-en-Provence 2006-7
  • • Joy Division/ New Order bios cultural center 2007
  • • Faust National Theatre 2009
  • • The House 30, Agisilaou str. 2009
  • • ΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΗ Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2009
  • • Guns! Guns! Guns! National Theatre 2009-10
  • • CINEMASCOPE, a documentary about the end of the world Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2010
  • • GALAXY (work in progress) Michael Cacoyiannis Foundation 2010