Tales From a State of Shemergency
November 2018
Marx remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as travesty - Olympia Bukkakis
How am I to deal with all this? How can we accept the past? Where do shame and trauma live in the body? How does the telling of stories affect our present (and future)? How does one exist under an oppressive and seemingly inescapable gender binary? Can we consolidate an identity under a constant state of crisis? Do I look good in this dress?*
In her masters graduation piece,Tales From a State of Shemergency, Olympia Bukkakis interrogates our relationship with the the past and explores the potential of a number of different storytelling genres in reproducing our societal surroundings. Her research focuses on different ways of displacing the conventions of these stories in order to challenge the conditions by which narratives come into being and structure our lives.
* I know I look good in this dress.
Performed and Created by Olympia Bukkakis
Dramaturgy: Allison Wiltshire
Sound Design: Collective Anxiety
Video and Set Design: Camille Lacadee
Lighting Design: Bryan Schall
Costume Design: Alexander Mersmann
Song Composition: Lyra Pramuk & Olympia Bukkakis
Mentors: Melanie Jame Wolf and Johannes Paul Raether
Tutor: Sandra Noeth
