Mystery 83 Spe Meliore Moriendi

An inter-art synergy of visual art, performance art and music in collaboration with the musicians Georgia Balabini and Mislav Režić and with the participation of various cultural groups of Elefsina. The work/action sets in the spotlight the rethinking of the characteristics that make up the whole of the ephemeral human existence, through the counterpoint of symbolic representations of the mythical world and the Renaissance. The artistic proposal includes three parts: the sculptural environment, the performance and the music.

The shape and materials of Marios Fournaris’ sculptural installations, which refer to nature and the compositional structures of the dwelling of the pre-linguistic world, constitute the conceptual framework of a transition to the intercultural and transhuman value of Myth, through the element of the Other of the non-Western. The aesthetic effect of the sculptural compositions appears as a contradiction to the conceptual content of the context of English Renaissance and Baroque music included in the concert programme.

Georgia Balabini and Mislav Režić will perform a musical work that transcends the boundaries of classical composition by combining voice and electric guitar, an instrument better known from rock or jazz music. The musical programme, consisting of works by John Dowland (1563 – 1626) and Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695), will be presented in a new, contemporary light with the use of various guitar sound effects, loops and improvisations for voice and guitar, which run according to the programme, interconnecting the performed pieces in a continuous structure.

Among the visual and musical parts of the work, the artistic groups of Elefsina, based on the libretto of Henry Purcell’s Baroque opera Dido and Aeneas (1689) (text in Greek by Panagiotis Adam), create an improvised theatrical event, with a contingent character. The dilemmas posed in the plot of the play, between love and betrayal, progress and tradition, the destruction of the «old world» and the creation of the «New Troy», are transferred to the natural triple cycle of creation – destruction – rebirth of the celebration of the Mysteries, with the aim of awakening a new consciousness of man’s relationship with himself, nature and society.