The “Bathtub of Dionysus” is an action and installation that took place in the run-down, multicultural area of Plato’s Academy. The open archaeological site functions as a meeting and recreation area for the “guest” crowd of Athens.
The installation/action addressed the origins of the expression of public poetic discourse in the Dionysian theater and was created as a response to the current situation of the city of Athens in relation to the season of autumn and the harvest.
The action aimed to highlight the active relationship between gathering, enunciation, co-eating, the ground, dance and the body.
In the specific area of Plato’s Academy, what was implied was the relationship of multiculturalism, that is, of the stranger (residents of the area) with Dionysus, a deity that concerns the “stranger” within every citizen, intoxication, that which as “wild” or “uncivilized” occupies man in the Dionysian festival. At the same time, the structure of the action referred on the one hand to the crushing of grapes in the collective and anonymous dance and on the other hand to the poetic recitation in the individualized person, the two constituent elements of the structure of ancient drama.
Along with the above, in reference to the ancient position of the Academy, a comment was made on Plato and the theme of the Platonic “idea”, with the final form that the installation took, as it was shaped as a kind of trace/monument/representation of the action itself after its end.
Specifically, the installation and action are described as follows:
1. INSTALLATION / THEATRE
A “theatre-press” was installed in the archaeological park of Plato’s Academy. A central press (orchestra) was placed on the floor of the square. In front of it, approximately ninety sheaves of wheat were placed in parallel rows. The sheaves were used as makeshift seats for the spectators of the grape pressing (koilon). Finally, the speakers (actors) of the action stood on an imaginary “step”, in front of existing scattered ancient building stones (scene).
The proposed layout of the space had a direct reference to the original layout of the Greek theater, with the skene-logeion, the orchestra and the koilon. The Dionysian dimension of the open theater was emphasized by the relationship between the dance and the pressing of grapes.
2. ACTIONS
After the installation of the “theater”, the action of “grape pressing” began on Saturday afternoon at 6 pm. The action/drama consisted of individual acts of pressing, speech distribution, preparation of mustalevria and its distribution to those present.
The perpetrators of the event as well as many bystanders, mainly children from the neighborhood, mainly from various minorities, participated in the rhythmic pressing of grapes.
During the event, an organized speech activity lasting 20′-25′ was held around the theme of wine and intoxication, with a collage of poetic and other texts. The activity used texts from different sources, such as: Homer, Osip Mandelstam, Folk Songs, Dioscorides, Anacreonteia, Marina Tsvetaeva, Karl Marx, Friedrich Hölderlin, Michel Scherr, Friedrich Nietzsche, Archilochus, Antonio Negri, Recipes, Pier-Paolo Pasolini, The Magic Papyri, Emily Dickinson.
The main action of pressing the grapes ended enthusiastically with the introduction of a percussion band and its rhythmic, powerful beating.
3. MONUMENT
After the end of the action, the used bundles of the “hollow” were used to create (as a reference to Plato) a monument in the form of a perforated tower, a kind of “trace” of the action. The tower, as a sound installation, broadcast for days the documentation of the action from recombined sound fragments.
Dramaturgy and Text Interpretation: Isabella Martzopoulou, Stergios Barres.
The following poets and visual artists also participated in the act of recitation and stamping: Antonis Volanakis, Phoebe Giannisi, Yannis Grigoriadis, Orestis Davias, Katerina Iliopoulou, Nadia Kalara, Zisis Kotionis, Panos Kouros, Konstantinos Matsoukas, Ianna Boukova, Iordanis Papadopoulos, Nana Sahini, Eleni Tzirtzilakis, Giorgos Tzirtzilakis, Giorgos Chantzis.
Nutrition action: Anna Maroulaki, Eleni Psychouli.
Music: Petros Kourtis, percussion group Drumvoice.
Organization: EMST (National Museum of Contemporary Art) and Municipality of Athens. Plato’s Academy, 24/09/2011.