Our new performance "Kryfo Nero" (Hidden Water) at Athens Epidaurus Festival

In a waterless Athens, at the junction of an abused river with a forgotten underground channel—at the point where the Kifisos meets the Hadrian Aqueduct—a Wanderer encounters people who were closely connected to the Aqueduct, together and each in their own way, throughout its long history.

The Potter, the Engineer, the Laborer, and the Refugee recognize in the Wanderer their “chosen one.” Only he can retrieve from oblivion the monumental work that continues to function on its own, nineteen centuries after its construction. Only he can descend into the Aqueduct and release its precious, hidden water.

Yet the mission they wish to entrust to him seems impossible. To persuade him, they will draw him into an exciting training game that will reveal new, unknown abilities of his body, while at the same time initiating him into the “secret” of the Aqueduct’s resilience and into a different rhythm of life. The Wanderer, now initiated and ‘of the water,’ will walk the underground tunnel to its end, ready to give new life to Athens—to revive its waterless body with Hadrian water.

In an era when our blind and one-dimensional faith in technological progress is being dramatically shaken, an ancient technological achievement comes to remind us that sustainability is grounded in the harmonious coexistence and interaction of human ingenuity and nature, of technology and the natural environment—and not in their separation.

A theater and dance performance on the banks of the Kifisos in Kifissia, a descent into the Roman aqueduct, beginning and ending at Dexameni Square in Kolonaki. The group Ohi Paizoume / UrbanDig Project, in an ongoing relationship of inspiration with the Aqueduct, explores humanity’s path toward a—now essential—water consciousness, a journey from the immaterial to the material, from the hidden to the revealed.

A production of the Athens Festival in collaboration with Ohi Paizoume / UrbanDig Project and the Municipality of Kifissia.

14–18 June, Kresthenon (Kifissia), with transport to the site provided by the Athens Festival

Information and tickets: https://www.more.com/gr-el/tickets/walk/festival/kryfo-nero/

Performers: Irini Alexiou, Haris Dimos, Athanasia Kourkaki, Nikos Lekakis, Foivos SymeonidisText: Panagiota PantaziDirection: Giorgos SachinisChoreography: Irini AlexiouCostumes–Set Design: Anna MagouliotiOriginal Music: Thanos KosmidisResearch & Production Support for UrbanDig Project: Kleio Liava, Dimitris Mouzakis, Tsambika Kotoula