“I adore your cinema, especially that of the Golden Age, Pasolini, Antonioni, Fellini, from which I learned lightness, smile, humour, but above all amazement, it taught me to observe the world with of an eternal child”. This is what Dimitris Papaioannou confessed during a brief meeting with the press, the greatest contemporary author (director, choreographer, dancer, set and costume designer, painter, visual artist) who will be in the capital (from 16 to 19 February) at the Teatro Argentina with ‘Ink- Play for two’ next to the young performer Suka Horn.
In the background of the pièce the encounter-clash between two very different personalities in age (born in 1964 Papaioannou, born in 1997 Horn). Father and son, the old and the young, the mature man who tries to ‘kill’ or act as a guide to the pupil, a dialogue always overwhelmed by the water and the lights. “Archetypes that take us back to our origins – Papaioannou explained – Water, for example, represents the unbridled vitalism against which we must fight, to tame it, contain it, like desire, libido, always overflowing and overflowing”.
‘Ink’ (ink), makes use of the original music written for the occasion by Kornilios Selamsis. Papaioannou mentions in the new creation, all in black and white, horror cinema and science fiction films, in particular one of Ridley Scott’s first films, ‘Alien’ (he ‘steals’ the gelatinous image of the octopus that we will find again in the show), the great Andrei Tarkovsky. “The first time I saw it at the cinema I was struck – he recalled – But I didn’t understand anything about the language. We share an obsession with water, but my sea is that of Greece, sunny, Mediterranean”.
And with regard to Greece, Papaioannou, artist in residence at Megaron – The Athens Concert Hall, underlined again: “My country, especially the artists, suffered during the lockdown also because we were still in full economic crisis. But today things are changing. You can breathe a different, less gloomy air. Athens, for example, is a very lively city. However, I continue to feel privileged even if I do not hide the fact that the pandemic has also affected more fortunate artists like me. Media first available were safe, I could ask what I wanted, everything was granted to me. The covid has restricted our spaces of action, even authorial – he continued – We had fewer means, I returned to a more intimate theater, with fewer interpreters. ‘Ink’ it started precisely from this profound need”.
And then he added returning to talk about ‘Ink’. “On stage two protagonists, a father and a son, a teacher and a pupil, two lovers. A dialogue made up of conflicts, from which tension, love, energy are generated. I always try to move within these universes, ‘wars ‘ between individuals, inevitable. Instead, I hope that wars, the real ones, the ones that are taking place on the battlefields, are easier to stop, that a solution is found as soon as possible, a way to reach peace”.