Programmed by

THALIA DIMITROPOULOU

AT AKADIMIA PLATONOS

Meta-Rhinoceros by Nelly Poulopoulou

Meta-Rhinoceros is a performance by Nelly Poulopoulou co-created with Angela Delihatsiou. It transforms the natural location of the park into an urgent theatrical event. Poulopoulou embodies a rushing rhino guardian of the park. She dances to the song of the trees, invites the audience to listen to the lost rivers and traces the boundaries and history of the park by walking. It speaks of a kind of naturalness to extinction, of common disorientations and social unconsciousness. Together with fellow travellers and passers-by, she marks an area of collective memory in a landscape in danger of being lost. 

Akadimia Platonos Park is threatened with the loss of its natural and cultural character through commercialization, dynamic tourism and violent “gentrification”. The meta-Rhinoceros project aspires to open a dialogue on the enhancement and sustainability of the archaeological park and to develop the idea of active citizens in the shaping of public spaces. The project is a work in process and is the result of the directors’ personal research on the influence of the specific landscape on their bodies, minds and attitudes. At the same time, it is a call of urgency to rescue common sense in the face of political-psychological thriller and the cry of ecological destruction.

The title “meta-Rhinoceros” is inspired by Ionesco’s play of the same name, but also by Sudan, the last white rhino depicted as graffiti in the park. It symbolizes the aftermath of mass irrationality, the afterlife of the last rational being. But instead of creating a dystopia, it returns to the basis of reason, the senses.

Nelly Poulopoulou is a director, choreographer and performer. Her work is intercultural and focuses on dance, speech and landscape. She explores the organicity of movement and voice and the connection between the body and the physical and social space. She teaches workshops in cultural organisations, natural and public spaces. She is co-founder and artistic director of the cultural organization Quilombo Lab.

Angela Delihatsiou is a theatre-maker: actress-performer, director and physical theatre trainer. She directs, co-creates, and is a performer in performances based on physical, devised, and site-specific theatre. Her outdoor performances also have an activist dimension, emphasizing the importance of open public spaces and the return of green spaces to citizens.

Credits: Idea, texts, performance by Nelly Poulopoulou, Co-creation, direction: Nelly Poulopoulou, Angela Delihatsiou, Costume design: Vali Papadopoulou, Video/camera: Kostas Kolimenos Editing: Nelly Poulopoulou, Music-Sound design: Panagiotis Vassalos, Original poster-graphic design: Katerina Rotoli, Photos: Kalliopi Vagiannaki, Production: quilombolab 

Connecting with plants: a plant walk and knowledge share facilitated by herbalist Eleni ‘officinalis’ Bourou

Deep within our inherited collective unconscious mind, way beneath our layers of conditioning, we hold memories of closeness that once existed between humans and the natural world.

Historically, people used the plants for shelter, fuel, clothing, decoration, food, rituals, magic and healing. In many texts it is stated that people’s knowledge of the properties of the plants stemmed from tests made by observing the animals. Some anthropologists note that when they asked native tribes how they got knowledge about the healing properties of plants, they got the answer that they were revealed to them in a dream.

Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, we are already communicating with plants all the time. The soothing, healing, tranquilizing feeling that comes when gardening or out in nature is in fact our psychic attunement to the joyous vibrations of the plants around us. To follow this feeling one step further –to its source– is to put yourself into direct communication with the plants.

Within our capitalist reality the healing relationship between humans and plants is in big extent broken, and our grandmas’ knowledge about them is almost lost, or, better, stolen. The work of re-entering into the collective dream of nature is not a cuddly option for those who wish to skip through the forests and the fields, it is a survival issue for the human race.

During this walk and sharing of knowledge at Akadimia Platonos we were introduced to the local plant community: the trees, shrubs and weeds of the park: their relevant history and lore, medicinal properties and uses; sit with them; immerse ourselves in their healing presence; stimulate our intuition through a blind tasting of teas; attempt to connect/communicate with our plant allies and, why not, invite them in our dreams.

Eleni ‘officinalis’ Bourou has been learning from plants all her life and working with them the last fifteen years –growing, foraging and processing plants to make remedies but also mediating to reconnect people with plants and their lost inner healer. Her practice is informed equally by pharmacognosy, intuitive herbalism, intersectional feminism, community organizing, poetry and rituals. @officinalis.drogeriii