Hotel “AntiOedipus”
IRCAM / Centre Georges Pompidou
CCRMA, Stanford University
"We welcomed Elli back recently probably as the most prominent representative of her generation internationally." EFSYN, Grigoris Ioannidis, Theatre Critic
Texts
About
Our world is shifting around us in these times of seclusion and dichotomy. As we are faced with a common crisis for the first time after WW2, some say we are connected more now than ever before. How does this affect our understanding of collective consciousness? What is this emerging global “Agora”? It is time to dive into the self and to connect with the collective. In Hotel “AntiOedipus”, Deleuze-Guattari’s fluid identity challenges the notion of a new ever evolving self. Fluid identity (collective and individual) is at the global epicenter.
In the show Hotel “AntiOedipus” face recognition and gaming technologies mixed with live visuals radically “upgrade” audience experience in digital performance. Avatars and solitary individuals connect live from the seclusion of their domestic environments across the globe; meet and have fun in virtual bars; join forces to form a new global “Agora”; through the keyhole attend psychoanalyst sessions that take place behind doors; move freely from one hotel room to the other; pip on the most private affairs of Jocasta and Oedipus and challenge the way we think of ourselves in a total game of identity. Hotel “AntiOedipus” is a challenge to explore the self.
Co-produced by
ODC Ensemble, with the Support of NEON org, Fullbright Greece, J.F. Costopoulos Foundation and the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports
research collaboration: CCRMA, Stanford University, USA
Credits
Concept, art direction & libretto: Elli Papakonstantinou
Original music composition: Julia Kent & Tilemachos Mousas
Music Direction: Julia Kent
Real time cinematic performance & Technical design: Stephanie Sherriff
Scientific advisor: Professor Manos Tsakiris
Performers: Nassia Gofa (Jocasta / Chorus), Elias Husiak (Boy, Young Oedipus, Avatar), Anastasia Katsinavaki (Teiresias / Chorus), Theodora Loukas (Woman), Lito Messini (Oedipus / Chorus),Adrian Frieling
More performers: Bret Woodard,Elisa Ricagni,Katerina Savvoglou,Angela Constantinidou,Marios Nikolaou,Orpheas Georgiou,Monica Ciarcelluti
Recorded musicians: Julia Kent (cello), Misha Piatigorsky (piano), Barbara Nerness (live electronics)
Executive Producer: Elli Papakonstantinou / ODC Ensemble
Assistant to the director: Gemma Hansson Carbone
Technical Manager: Charikleia Petraki
Technical Assistant: Afroditi Anastopoulou
Production Manager: Korina Kotsiri
Publicist: Maria Tsolaki
General Manager ODC: Ero Lefa
Photography: Elias Moraitis, Mariza Kapsabeli
Trailer: Nikos Ziogas, Charikleia Petraki
Dates
March 3, 2021 FORUM VERTIGO, IRCAM | Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, FranceGallery: Hotel “AntiOedipus”
Reviews
“Contemporary Anti-Oedipus in zoom”, by Grigoris Ioannidis, Theatre Critic, EFSYN National Newspaper
We followed Elli's steps abroad a few years ago as an extremely dynamic creator who was leaving due to the crisis. We welcomed her back recently probably as the most prominent representative of her generation internationally.
Review on Hotel “AntiOedipus” by Louisa Arkoumanea, Theatre Critic, Dramaturg
The whole riddle of the Sphinx gets its answer here...
Hotel “AntiOedipus” by Elli Papakonstantinou, a digital identity game for avatars and lonely users throughout the universe, certainly has plenty more substantial reasons for existence than most sterile representations of tragedy (that are presented every summer in Epidaurus. (There are exceptions, such as that of Bob Wilson).
The whole riddle of the Sphinx gets its answer here in a more developed version. We are now off the feet. How many legs make a man, four, two or three, and now at the “Hotel AntiOedipus” we can ask, how many genders make a man, how many transformations, how many becomings.
Chloe Kolyri, Psychiatrist – psychoanalyst
Hotel “AntiOedipus” is the epitome of the new theatre, which is a total theatre. It plunges into life, creates a continuity. Life, theatre and the subconsciousness define a never ending line. Art, psychoanalysis and life are interconnected. It’s a new theatre but is also primitive. The art of Elli Papakonstantinou enters into the thing itself, excavates it, reshapes it in the unconscious, replaces representation with a plunge, a dive into its own creation. In the place of the representation of desire it restores desire justifying the whole piece.
Elli Papakonstantinou creates new theatrical forms; at the epicentre, there is the collectiveness. Here, participation is the catharsis. The piece is continued in the audience and the audience goes into the play, as for example in the extraordinary scene of the Chorus of the City. Hotel “AntiOedipus”, creates itself all the philosophy and the anthropology and the science. Because this is the main theme: love and its limits, desire and its limits.
Paul K. Smith, Playwright
The issue at stake is finding escapes, and it is those escapes which Hotel “AntiOedipus” traces.
Elli Papakonstantinou: your work is wondrous, incandescent, transformative — radiant, luminous, with the kind of light that flushes out all darkness […] It was serendipitous to come to your fluidity-of-roles and identities-production.
Michael Walling, Theatre director, Academic and Artistic Director of BorderCrossings, UK
There are some stunning moments, the Tiresias scene etched on my mind. It’s very impressive to make the play so clearly about the body where there aren’t any bodies present!
Erika L. Weiberg, Assistant Professor of Classical Studies
I thoroughly enjoyed Hotel “AntiOedipus”! The interactive parts of the performance were so much fun, and MC Oedipus was fabulous. It is very challenging to do live music over Zoom, so I was impressed that the songs worked really well. […] I especially liked the nod to Teiresias as a figure who blurs binaries of gender as well as of sight/blindness.
Review on Hotel “AntiOedipus” by Louisa Arkoumanea
Certainly has plenty more substantial reasons for existence than most sterile representations of tragedy that are presented every summer in Epidaurus.