Shadow theatre
The shadow theatre dates back to prehistoric times, when artificial and mimic shapes were created by hand from the lit fire in the caves of the people of the Neolithic era. The issue of the origin of the shadow theatre has been mentioned in antiquity or even byzantium, but it is not proven by official sources. There is a shadow theatre in Egypt, before its conquest by the Turkish tribes in the17th century.
It has also not been scientifically clear whether it was thanks to the movement of The Turkish tribes from India or China that the shadow theatre in the Mediterranean was spread. Finally, it is possible that theatre will spread through the Gypsies.
In any case, the Turkish karagiozis or Karagoz had nothing to do with the hero we loved. The dialectical comic types of the Turkish Karagoz, Baba Himmet from the mountains of the East, Lazos, Rumelili from the Balkans, the Kurd, tartarus, the Gypsy, the Persian, the Arab, Armenis and the Jew faithfully reflect the social constitution of the traditional mahala of Constantinople during the Turkish occupation. Even the issues come from historical events concerning the closed micro-society such as the frequent violence of the Janissaries against the population of the city. The character of the performances was intensely Aristophanes, the funny phallic and the humor obscene.
Karagiozis was therefore played in all the Balkan dominions of the Ottoman empires. With this in mind, he had certainly come to Greece. An English traveler mentions that in Ioannina in 1809 he saw a performance before Ramadan. "Ina grisy café a Jew plays in front of the children". In liberated Greece, the first testimony concerns 1834 in Athens. « There was no theatrical life. Only Karagiozis had camped in filthy what café […]»
However, the catalytic moment for the consolidation of Karagiozis in Greece and the huge impact it had in the following years, comes with the reform of Mimaros in 1890. The contribution of Mimaros was great in the sense that Karagiozis would otherwise have disappeared as in all the regions of the former Ottoman Empire and in Turkey itself.
The new types of the berdet are Barba George, Sior Dionysios, Stavrakas. The new works are often based on an old Turkish hypothesis, but they also draw from modern Greek folk fiction, from Alexander the Great to '21, the shepherds, the underworld of the cities, the urban café, and even from current affairs, such as the murder of Athanasopoulos.
Thus, over time, Karagiozis addresses a wide audience and acquires in a few years an extremely large social functionality. It is worth noting that from 1900 to 1930 the humble Karagiozis entertained a multiple audience compared to all the other theaters together. Real folk theatre that is and an important event in the life of the theatrical history of Greece.
Nowadays, karagiozis no longer expresses the entire audience in the way it did in the past. In other words, the social, popular control for the creation of the artist is lost, as well as the specific functionality of the authentic folk theatre.
The student Ismini drew information about the text from the book:
Pouchner, Walter, Folk Theatre in Greece and the Balkans.
Pantomime
In pantomime you express feelings and thoughts based on your body, your feeling, your imagination. In pantomime there is a reason, only it is not spoken. Through pantomime, you express feelings and thoughts, not to make up for speech but to enrich it. You are thus slowly led to the organized and disciplined expressive movement. The pantomime enables the whole body to make clear the feelings and impulses and to transmit what is experience, emotion, joy, some crucial and essential part of its existence.
Loukas
Street Theatre
Street theatre combines theatre with the world of vaudeving, improvised actions with acrobatics and folk events, intricate stage constructions with texts by contemporary and ancient writers. And if the art of theatre is considered ephemeral, street theatre is the art of ephemeral and constant wandering.
One of the first performances of the street is <ο αρλεκίνος="">> with references to the commedia dell' arte and which was based on the intermedia of an earlier performance.</ο> The street theater is a very good opportunity for travel and wandering. Street theatre can, in a very substantial way, descend into the world, reach and pass messages and aesthetic quests and conquer the random viewer communicant of very meaningful actions. In the past, street theatre had more to do with social political achievements, in direct proportion to the conditions and needs of the people. Today, perhaps the street theatre is more related to the life of the city. With its relentless everyday life with its gray square architecture. Perhaps the street theatre today is related to the inner search for the magical city of the land of dream and imagination.
In Greece there is no tradition in street theatre, there is no history unlike other European countries. The main difference between the audience of the closed theatre and the street theatre is that the audience of the theatre is varied. You can see children, ordinary people, immigrants and the homeless in a street theatre performance. In the theatre of the hall, in order to succeed first and foremost to calculate in more audience, one is addressed.
Evangelia