ANAVRA a continuous come-back to Dourgouti

Photo byMaria Toultsa

Ohi Pezoume / UrbanDig Project returns back to Dourgouti neighborhood, where the team started with the community projects, investing in the sustainability and impact of the programs it is launching. A neighborhood that continues to stir inspiration, ideas, desires, sense of warmth and collectivity. Four years after the Dourgouti Island Hotel show, which has been the starting point for participatory synergies (such as art workshops, thematic tours, cultural and institutional collaborations, resident programs), the Ohi Pezoume / UrbanDig Project team returns to the place with a new artistic and community event.

The Dance Performance

The dance performance ANAVRA (Effervescence) is created by Ohi Pezoume / UrbanDig Project and powered by Onassis Stegi (November 2019).

It is a pas de deux for the rivers that run underneath us. It is a dance in public space with music by Panagiotis Kokoras, inspired by Dourgouti Neighborhood of Athens, where Ilissos river is entombed under the concrete of its public space. Kokoras's music work "asphyxia" (suffocation) was performed by ArteFacts Ensemble as part of the program Music for a New World by Onassis Stegi.

ANAVRA is dedicated to the entombed river beneath the burning asphalt. "Sure, as soon as you can dance, the fire becomes cool water, but until you get there, oh God! what a struggle, what an agony!" This phrase by novelist Nikos Kazantzakis becomes our line of approach to one of Dourgouti's arcades that resembles the cross-section of Ilissos river running underneath.

The Community Event

In the same place, after the performance, there will be a tour by the local team Eyes of Art who have developed a social technology project in the recent past, by installing interactive signs in public space, under the Polis2 program. Eyes of Art are supported by Ohi Pezoume / UrbanDig Project in the context of the This is Athens-Polis program (http://www.polis2.thisisathens.org/) of the Municipality of Athens (title of action: "Pou Vadizoume" (Where Do We Walk), https://pouvadizoume.gr/). After the tour, a "World Cafe" session, the methodology that is still publicly displayed for a few more days before being changed, will be presented in a workshop by Odysseas Veletzas. The application of this social technology session will conclude the event.