"Eurydice"
live-art "Eurydice" of UrbanDig Project / "Hotel Obscura Austria"
Concept/Performance: Eirini Alexiou
January 2015
The live art performance "Eurydice" is inspired by the myth "Orpheus and Eurydice". It deals with the issue of loss, but also trust in the transcendental or spectral.
This is a 15-minute performance between dancer / choreographer Eirini Alexiou and a spectator. A story of loss that the viewer will accept to tell becomes a choreography right in front of his eyes, but looking through a mirror. The viewer cannot immediately see the performer's face, but receives the gifts of "Eurydice", who politely asks him "can I dance your story?"
"Eurydice" was created in a Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy workshop in Linz and re-played at a hotel in Tours, both as part of the Hotel Obscura program. Since then, she has been performed in Napoli (Altofest 2015) and in Athens as part of the Dourgouti Island Hotel and later in Exarchia, the neighborhood of Napoleon Lapathiotis with whom we associated her, as part of the 2018 World Book Capital. She won the first prize at Altofest 2015.
During spring 2020 and as we go through a shocking period of humanity, "Eurydice" returns with a special artistic dynamic: Inspired by the interaction offered by the internet, but also by the peculiar intimacy of the teleconference from home, "Eurydice" seeks to communicate this time digitally. Within 15 minutes, two people meet and coexist from their personal space on an internet platform, thus finding a communication channel. In this new era, digital space highlights qualities and dynamics that go beyond its nature as a mere technological tool: it can and does become almost telepathic, showing that live art is not lost, but, on the contrary, can continue to grow and evolve, stimulating interest in internal search and interpersonal communication.