"Iketides" of Aeschylus in Sainopouleio

Aeschylus

IKETIDES

Directed by Marianna Kalbari

CAROLUS KOUN ARTS THEATRE & NEW WORLD THEATRE

Sixty years after the first presentation of the play in Epidaurus, the Karolos Koun Art Theatre and the New World Theatre present Aeschylus' emblematic tragedy "Iketides", with the directorial signature of the Artistic Director of Art Theatre, Marianna Kalbaris.

It is a show about the deep roots of patriarchy and how they have defined the position of women in society from ancient times to the present day.

Lena Papaligouras and Loukia Michalopoulou, together with Yiannis Tsortekis and Akis Sakellariou, make up the excellent lead ensemble of a performance marked by the return of the leading Greek tragedian Lydia Koniordou to the Argolic theatre.

Premiere on July 21st in Delphi.

The show

Iketides is the first and only surviving work of Aeschylus' Danaides tetralogy. The protagonist is the Dance of the fifty Danaids, who, together with their father Danaos, seek asylum in Argos—the place that their ancestor Io once abandoned, chased by the "estrus"—to escape from their cousins, the fifty sons of Egypt, who demand to marry them by force.

The myth poses the question of women's identity and position in society while at the same time chronicling the migration and the predominance of the Greek gender in the land of the Pelasgians, the so-called "Pre-Greeks."

The Iketides discuss the needs that lead people to be uprooted from their land, the brutal fate of the refugees, the value of justice, and the principles of democracy. Above all, however, they speak of the Woman's struggle against the Man who forcibly demands to be imposed on her.

Wishing to reintroduce to the public the largely unknown myth of the Danaids as well as the fascinating text of Aeschylus, the show comes to talk about coming of age and every human's longing for freedom and justice, touching on significant issues of our time, such as refugee and gender violence, which concern this poetic but also profoundly political work.

The show redemptively unites the voices of ancient heroines with those of today, bringing a Dance of Seventeen Danaids from the Chóres choir, the Drama School of the Art Theatre and the dance-acrobatic group "Kai omos kineitai".