Open Plan: Autumn & Winter Activities Of Athens & Epidaurus Festival

This year, for the first time in its history, the Athens & Epidaurus Festival expands its activities throughout the autumn and winter season, introducing a series of research initiatives and collaborations, named after the well-known architectural term Open Plan; a term carrying connotations of open space, flow, freedom of thought and movement. As with open plan spaces, this set of initiatives launched by the Festival suggests a new way of being together, of breaking down boundaries and barriers.

The Festival events under the Open Plan umbrella – workshops, masterclasses, performances, webinars, and original artistic works – are addressed both to professional artists and to the public at large, regardless of age.

True to the flexible character of this new project, the majority of the Open Plan events are specially designed to be conducted online, digitally bridging the physical distance that separates us all due to the ongoing pandemic and bringing us all together in a virtual, open space, a terrain of creativity and exchange of ideas.

The Open Plan program, which is free of charge, fulfills three basic goals that pervade our entire programming. First of all, it gives us a foretaste of the Festival program that will be realized in the summer of 2021, in the form of two thematic sections that had already been announced in the original 2020 program, focusing on experimental and electronic music (Chronotopia, held in collaboration with the Berlin-based CTM Festival and Goethe-Institut Athen) and hip hop and street dance culture (Layers of Street). Secondly, the program brings attention to ancient drama, connecting it with contemporary art and daily practice. Thirdly, Open Plan caters to artists (directors, dancers, actors, choreographers, musicians, dramaturges, etc.) and their longing to be active again and hone their tools amid this year’s difficult circumstances. Last but not least, Open Plan is also targeted at a broader audience of all ages, encouraging them to create their own works of art. By eliminating the distance between artists and audiences, by foregrounding creativity and artistic research as fields of expression accessible by everyone, the program aspires to foster a creatively engaged audience that will jointly shape the Festival’s artistic identity.

These events will be held at Hall B of Peiraios 260, in the process reanimating a venue that has been inactive this year – a largely symbolic gesture for culture professionals, who have been dealt a heavy blow by the pandemic.