performance audio video installation
Volax: geological area suffused with granite boulders in Tinos island
Four female performing artists interact live with the image and embodied experience of the landscape of Volakas. They explore an experiential mapping of the Cycladic site in order to create a container of intimacy and kinship amongst themselves, viewers and the present moment.
The performance is based on the practice-based research of The Volax Project: Looking for Solid Ground (group Geopoetics, 2021). A body-landscape performance residency that explores the Cycladic landscape as an ontological process, a practice of being-ness to re-imagine the processes ways through which we look at the land, project and manifest our individual and collective selves.
The performance is structured around a large-scale video installation based on the visual material of the research project in Tinos. The projections at a great height simulate the Tinian geological landscape with the neutral space of the venue and reproduce the archetypal time of the Cyclades as a field of direct experience and open awareness.
Between the mediated landscape of Volakas and the urban space of city, the artists compose live an image, sound and movement event and invite the viewers to respond psychophysically tracing the inner journey of their own. In the hybrid space of ‘in-between’ the digital and the live, inner and outer landscapes interweave into a multimedia narrative and create a meditative experience towards a dreaming of the collective Self.
research, concept, dramaturgy: Anna Tzakou
video installation / editing: Sophia Simaki
based on the video filmmaking of Christina Phoebe
music / sound design: Thaleia Ioannidou
live action / performance: Despina Chatzipavlidou, Anna Tzakou
light design: Melina Mascha
assistant director: Konstantina Kontomanoli
graphic design: Yorgis Noukakis
The Volax Project: Looking for Solid Ground
A body-landscape performance practice laboratory
concept/ research/ facilitation: Anna Tzakou
performers/ participants Despoina Chatzipavlidou, Anna Apergi, Anna Tzakou
relational artists/ participants: rosanayaris (Rosana Sánchez & Aris Spentsas)
video filmmaking: Christina Phoebe.
project’s website: thevolaxproject.com
The performance includes extracts from the text
‘The Earth Worm Also Sings: A Composer’s Practice of Deep Listening’ by Pauline Oliveros.
photo credits: Dora Bampali, Anthi Mouriadou
Funded by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture
Anna Tzakou/ group Geopoetics © February 2024, Athens
