The Greek National Opera launches a collaboration with the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Kavala, aiming to strengthen its network of partnerships with organizations across Greece and support new artistic creations. As part of this partnership and a new, joint initiative, the four new productions from this year’s 68th Philippi Festival will travel to Athens, hosted by the GNO, from 12 to 16 September 2025. These productions were all commissioned from emerging artists by the Festival, which is organized by the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Kavala.

Three of these performances – (Tree)², The Infallibility of One (1) DaisY, Rock + Thread + Heart = – will be held at the Stavros Niarchos Hall Backstage at the SNFCC on the 12^th, 13^th, and 14^th of September, bringing the audience in direct contact with site-specific works. The fourth production – (All)^ν those things we leave behind < for a tomorrow that will never come… – will take place at sea on the 15^th and 16^th of September, along the Piraeus – Egina route, transforming the ship into a stage and turning the journey into a memorable experience.

Inspired by the life and work of Chronis Missios – a literary figure and member of the Greek Resistance from Kavala to whom this year’s Festival is dedicated – and guided by the paradoxical equation of generosity 8-3=11, the performances will engage in open dialogue with the institution’s theme, connecting speech, music, and performance to the surrounding space and the audience.

The four productions of the Philippi Festival to be presented are the following:  

(Tree)²
Based on texts by Chronis Missions and Souha Bechara
Stavros Niarchos Hall Backstage – SNFCC
12, 13, 14 September 2025 • Starts at: 18.00
Concept, direction: Vasilis Apostolatos • Music: Michalis Paraskakis • Dramaturgy: Zoe Xanthopoulou • Sets, lighting design: Vasilis Apostolatos | Cast: Danai-Arsenia Filidou, Anastasis Georgoulas

In a world where the lines between fantasy and reality blur, two young people—a boy and a girl— find themselves trapped in inner and outer confinements. With civil war and their violent exclusion in different countries and times serving as their common ground, they discuss, confront each other, and seek freedom. Through their conversation, they negotiate concepts such as memory, the body, life, death, and the very essence of freedom.

The performance’s dramaturgy incorporates the neurological phenomenon known as “prisoner’s cinema”, which occurs when the brain, in conditions of total darkness and deprivation, projects luminous images ranging from abstract colours to complete scenes onto the retina. In this optical illusion – an escape from painful reality – converging and diverging pieces of the heroes’ lives unfold, flowing between the present and the past. But can such a projection become a refuge? Is imagination an escape route or a trap? The performance features texts from Chronis Missio’s books, as well as excerpts from Sucha Besara’s book Resistance, in free translation.

*Warm thanks are extended to Alexandros Stavropoulos for his valuable help.  

The Infallibility of One (1) DaisY
Every seed has the potential to become a tree
Stavros Niarchos Hall Backstage – SNFCC
12, 13, 14 September 2025 • Starts at: 19.30
Text: Chronis Missios • Stage directors: Sonia Kalaitzidou, Marios Kritikopoulos • Dramaturgs: Sonia Kalaitzidou, Rodez Group • Music, on-stage musician: Nikitas Kissonas • Movement director: Nikolas Chatzivasileiadis • Set, lighting design: Vasilis Apostolatos • Costume designer: Alexandra-Anastasia Ftouli • Mask construction: Dimitra Kaisari | Cast: Marios Kritikopoulos, Anthi Savvaki, Electra Sarri, Nikos Yalelis

What happens when everything you believed seems to be overturned?
And what if, in the end, there’s no key waiting for you under the geranium pot?

Inspired by the texts and life of Chronis Missios and other fighters and intellectuals, this performance aspires to carve out its own, distinct path.

Using the body, voice, and music as tools, it aims to portray onstage the life journey of a romantic fighter who, after standing up against a repressive system that crushes people and enduring torture and imprisonment, ended up witnessing his dream fall apart. We watch him gradually lose faith in everything that once gave him strength and turn to a new, different ideology that could perhaps give him the answers he was looking for as he reaches the twilight of his life. We watch him seek tenderness and romance, finding refuge in nature and love as the only remaining sources of human happiness. Four narrators and one musician will build, dismantle, and reconstruct his dream, frustration, fights, and hope, creating, through fragments of memory, a romantic story from an old time that bears a striking resemblance to our own.

Rock + Thread + Heart =
A scenic dream fantasy inspired by Mount Pangaion
Stavros Niarchos Hall Backstage – SNFCC
12, 13, 14 September 2025 • Starts at: 21.00
Concept, stage director, texts, lighting design: Michalis Angelidis • Music, sound design: Nikos Sotirelis  • Set & costume designer, custom fabrication: Aphrodite Psychouli  • Cast: Michalis Angelidis, Dimitris Galanakis

A scenic, dreamlike fantasy conversing with the mythical and natural landscape of Mount Pangaion, blending elements of modern dance, theatre, and performance.

This performance draws on the collective imaginary surrounding Mount Pangaion, which comprises the Dionysian tradition, landscape transformations, and local customs such as “Arapides” and “Babo.” The elements create the atmospheric setting in which the scenic language unfolds – a language inspired by their essence, yet free to recount both old and new stories.

Using movement, gestures, speech, and images as tools, two performers and a female chorus create a new stage mythology, where human and non-human elements co-exist. Soundscapes, based on onsite recordings from Mount Pangaion and traditional local rhythms, surround and interweave the action. Inspired by Rosy Braindotti’s thinking, this work moves away from human-centrism and envisions a world where human and non-human beings equally coexist. At the same time, it thematically connects to Chronis Mission’s universe, drawing on his ideas about the power of collective memory and the need to reconnect with the natural environment.

*Heartfelt thanks are extended to Irida Nikolaou for her valuable help with the dramaturgy, to Konstantinos Chaldeos for his important contribution to the creation of the set, and to the musicians Sokratis Votskos, Alex Louloudis, Giorgos Sechlidis, and Dimitris Apostolidis for their participation in the recording of the performance’s music.

Performance at sea (Piraeus-Aegina-Piraeus itinerary)
(All)^ν those things we leave behind < for a tomorrow that will never come…
A performance at sea / an experience for the desires that never reached port
15, 16 September 2025 • Starts at: 19.00
Departure time: 18.15 (Gate E8, Piraeus Port, F/B Antigoni of the Saronic fleet)
Boarding time: 17.30

Concept, stage director: Marios Kakoullis • Text, dramaturgical collaborator: Erie Kirjia • Music: Andreas Valachis | Cast: Symeon Kostakoglou, Anastasis Georgoulas, Giorgos Ziakas, Thodoris Vrachas, Spyros Bosgas

Also featuring: Anna Allayioti, Vasilia Katsikalaki, Dimitra Kardasi, Eleftherios Argyros, Eftychia Papadopoulou, Zoe Tsiruki, Christos Kerkidis, Claudius Tsouka, Kleio Christopoulou, Markella Papadimitriou, Marialena Trigilida, Christina Paraskeva

Live performance on board
15/9 • kostis
Kostas Christou, Thomas Papathanasis,
Stefanos Keranis bouzouki; Zisis Mezilis keyboards
16/9 • kalogerakia
Michalis Kalogerakis guitar, voice;
Pantelis Kalogerakis voice

“We divided the day into corpses of moments, killed hours that we will be burying within us, in the caves of our being, in the caves where the freedom of desire is born, caves we fill with all kinds of shit and the trash passed on to us as “values”, “morality”, and “culture”. We turned our bodies into an endless graveyard of murdered desires and expectations, leaving behind the most important and most essential things… Everything, we leave everything behind for a tomorrow that will never come…” C.M.

Aboard the ship connecting Piraeus with Egina, an exceptional performance will come to life, inspired by truths expressed in Chronis Missios’ work. An ode to everything we didn’t dare to pursue: desires left half-spoken, words that never found their way to our lips, and gazes that turned elsewhere. An ode to all those things we haven’t experienced – and all the ones we still have a chance to live.

This is not just an ordinary journey; it is an immersive experience, a movement, a transition, a return, a departure without a destination, a journey you set out on not to reach any specific endpoint, but to lose yourself for a while. There we will meet a version of ourselves who took a different path, is in another phase, and lives another life, illuminated under a different light.

The director of the performance, Marios Kakoullis, remarks: “The stage (and its world) becomes a fluid space that hovers somewhere between ports, memories, and fantasies. Phrases, texts, and images from Chronis Missios’ life and work will fuel the performance’s core, illuminate the ineffable, and stand by all that remains unspoken yet persists. This performance is a gesture towards the unattainable.”

Useful information:
1. The ship Antigone will depart from Gate E8 at the port of Piraeus at 18.15 (sharp). It is recommended to arrive for boarding at least one hour earlier, by 17.30.
2. The total duration of the onboard performance (Piraeus – Aegina – Piraeus), including the stay at the port of Aegina, is three and a half (3.5) hours.
3. The performance will be presented on the Piraeus – Aegina route. During the return trip to Piraeus, there will be live music on deck.
4. As the performance involves moving to different parts of the ship, audiences are advised to wear comfortable clothes and shoes.

*Warm thanks are due to the Philharmonic of the Municipality of Aegina and Saronic Ferries.