Mystery 57 Climbing over Elefsina

The interdisciplinary art project Climbing over Elefsina returns from the 7^th to the 18^th of June 2022,co-organized by 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture. This major French-Greek collaboration, following its great success last October, returns with a plethora of actions. The art of the circus, contemporary dance and music, open rehearsals and imaginative pop-up events will be presented, once again focusing on the inhabitants and urban landscape of Elefsina and Bagneux, France.

At the same time, from the 14^th to the 18^th of June, the artistic and scientific team of renowned French architect and urban planner, Patrick Bouchain,returns for one more cycle of the itinerant urban planning workshop “Revisiting the landscapes of Elefsina.” With the participation of the artists, but also of the residents of Elefsina, the workshop aims to showcase the city’s human, industrial and ancient heritage.

The final form of the work in progress, entitled “Climbing over Elefsina,” in this first stage of its creation, will be presented on Saturday, June 18 at the Old Olive Mill Open Theater with free admission.

The Climbing over Elefsina programme gathers artists from the fields of contemporary dance, contemporary circus and Eastern & Western Mediterranean music, from Greece and France, creating artistic events about public and private space, urban design and the multicultural social fabric of suburban cities. As part of the European Capital of Culture, this important work of research and artistic creation, under the artistic direction of Gaëtan Levêque and Christina Sougioultzi, brings together three Greek artists from the fields of contemporary dance and circus, from the group Ki omos kineitai with five French circus artists and three musicians from Le Plus Petit Cirque du Monde (The Smallest Circus in the World), the famous “danger arts” and international artistic exchange school. The fruit of the first research stage of this collective action is a work in progress, inspired by the inhabitants and the urban landscape of Elefsina and Bagneux, France, which will be presented in the city, in its full form, during the year of the title. Excerpts from its first presentation, which took place in October 2021 in public spaces of Elefsina with rehearsals open to the public.