Why on the first weekend of February all roads lead to Eleusis?
Series of interviews of Chris Baldwin in Greece for the opening of 2023 Eleusis.
- You are widely known for Teatro de Creacion (TdC) and citizen-centred dramaturgy. You have vast experience in cultural leadership within the European Capital of Culture Initiative and have been the Artistic Director of big events. What is it that still intrigues you in these projects?
Curiosity. I am driven by a sense that there is so much more to discover and try to understand. And then of course there is huge delight in working out a way in which we can develop an event that has real significance and value to a local audience as well as another further away - around the whole of Europe potentially. And yet on a deeper level, I must admit to a slight tendency towards seeing these events as occasions for a mighty and wide public conversation about what it means to be a city in Europe or even a city or region on our planet. So much connects us. Indeed everything is connected - and you only need to look for a moment to see that the climate is proof of that. With the climate emergency, all of us will experience huge migrations of people in the upcoming decades. But this is nothing new to us. Europeans have continually migrated during the 20th century as empires collapsed and others tried to take advantage. Mass movements of people have often been the result of forced actions as we know only too well if we look at Greek history and the Asia Minor catastrophe one hundred years ago. So these big cultural projects can be creative carriers of public debate. And Teatro de Creación, and more recently Citizen-Centred Dramaturgy, are a series of techniques and methods which I have developed over the years to be practical tools for going about such work. How can we use cultural practice to structure a public conversation? How can the large public arenas be used for forms of entertainment which are not void of content but places where we can touch upon interesting and relevant social issues? Of course, this same question occupied one of the most famous sons of Elefsina almost 2500 years ago - Aeschylus.
- The article of News 24/7 Magazine in Greek language can be read here.
- The review in ATHINORAMA.GR you can find here.
- Here is the conversation with real.gr