When: Thursday, June 1 – Thursday, July 13, 10:20 – 12:20

Where: Communication Building – Room 2106

Organized by: Frances Rich School of Fine and Performing Arts and Theater Arts Society

Free admission and open to the public

For more information, please contact 210 600 9800 ext. 1456 or [email protected]

The ACG Theater Arts Society, with Professor and Curator Thanos Vovolis, welcome the public to a series of lectures on Contemporary Performance and Outdoor Public Space.

THURSDAY, JUNE 1
Paris Legakis
Multidisciplinary Artist,
Activist, Art Theorist

THURSDAY, JUNE 8
Jennifer Nelson
Artist, Choreographer, Performer,
Associate Professor, Deree

THURSDAY, JUNE 22
Francesco Kiàis
Artist, Art Writer, Curator,
Member, Curatorial Board of Venice
International Performance Art week

THURSDAY, JULY 6
Vicky Spanovangelis
Interdisciplinary Practitioner,
Architect, Choreographer,
Lecturer, Researcher

THURSDAY, JULY 13
Giorgos Zamboulakis
Theater Director,
Acting Professor, Athens
Conservatory Drama
Artistic Director, Experimental
Theater of Thrace

LECTURE THEMES

The quest for new spatialities shaped by the dynamics of the outdoor and public space, constitute part of the driving force behind some of the more recent developments in the field of Performance. That is, space is regarded as an open territory, an open system for the performance event, a boundless space in continuous process of emergence and metamorphosis. The Lecture Series brings a diverse group of distinguished artists under a common theme. Recognized nationally or internationally for their work. They are all invited to present their artistic work and initiate a purposeful discussion within our artistic community.

Guest Artists

Paris Legakis, is a multidisciplinary artist, activist, and theorist, researching how art can be beneficial for the society and influence politics. He has conducted field researches worldwide, experimenting with different art practices of social engagement that aim to reveal different perspectives of everyday life and foster the idea of social change. He has written the manifesto Claim Your Anger, on politics and political art, and he has created his own methodology called Irregular Temporary Interactions (I.T.I). He studied Performance Studies (MA) at NYU, where he was awarded for Outstanding MA Work. He also studied Public Art and New Artistic Strategies (MFA) at the Bauhaus University-Weimar, in Germany. Legakis’ research interests focus on memory and emotions, geopolitical and social borders, language, and translation.

Jennifer Nelson engages in acts of social and ecological choreography through a cross-disciplinary performance and art practice. She is committed to the playful realignment of social spaces through collective initiative, and to the transformative possibilities of the individual act. Among many influences, her work has been significantly shaped by her direct personal experience with disruptive or transitional world choreographies like the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the media aftermath of September 11th, and currently, the austerity measures and on-going economic hardship in Athens, Greece. Nelson studied New Genres at the San Francisco Art Institute and at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she received her MFA.  She has exhibited in museums and festivals in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Recent projects have been on the streets of Athens and in Nestor, 1st Psychogeriatric Boarding House with the Guerrilla Optimists.

Francesco Kiàis is an artist, an independent art writer and curator. He is member of the curatorial board of the Venice International Performance Art Week and collaborates with different educational programs, both as a theoretician and as an artist. He recently created and co-founded a platform based in Athens and dedicated to performance art, the [MIND THE] G.A.P. – Gathering Around Performance. Currently he is holding a series of lectures on Performance Art at the Ionian University, Department of Audio and Visual Arts, as a visiting lecturer.

Vicky Spanovangelis is a London-Athens based Interdisciplinary practitioner, British chartered architect, choreographer, lecturer, and researcher. A design creative and independent artist, with 20 years of experience in the design & construction industry, and academic sphere of dance & architecture. Her career began as an architect, and in parallel pursued studies in contemporary dance, uniquely integrating dance with architecture. An established educator since 2001, teaching in various higher educational institutions with focus on mediatized spaces and choreography as inhabitable environments. A curator and design consultant with specific focus on cultural buildings and museum architecture, currently pursuing doctoral studies in Choreography and Architecture, developing choreography as a cultural practice for knowledge towards the social and sensory experience of the built environment.

Giorgos Zamboulakis is a theatre director, currently Professor of Acting at the Drama School of the Athens Conservatory and the Artistic Director of The Experimental Theater of Thrace. Between the years 2007-2013, he has been teaching Acting at the Drama School of The National Theatre of Greece. The past twenty years he has been working as a Theater Director in theatres in Greece and Europe; amongst some of them are, the Greek National Theatre, the National Theatre of Iceland, and the Romanian National Theatre. He is specialized in Greek tragedy plays and Bertolt Brecht plays and has been working extensively with many twentieth century dramas. His latest one is, The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller and The Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. Many of his performances have been awarded as: Euripides’Bacchae -National Theatre of Iceland- Best performance 2006-2007, Landscape performance ‘tea time EUROPE’-Grand Prize at Man.In. Fest International Experimental Theatre Festival Romania.etc.