The Collective

• Vassilis Noulas

  

  He is a theatre director, writer and visual artist based in Athens. He is a founding member and the director of the theatre collective Nova Melancholía. In his work, he attempts to re-approach elements of the Greek and the European traditions of "melancholy", hence gradually constructing his personal spiritual genealogy.

  He studied Drama and Visual Arts in Athens and Paris. He is an honors graduate of the Department of Theatre Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens, as well as an honors graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts. He holds a Master’s degree in Theatre and Live Arts from Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3. He writes poetry and short prose in Greek. His articles on cultural issues are occasionally published in the press. 

  His work with Nova Melancholia has been presented at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the Onassis Stegi, the Greek National Opera, the Athens Biennale, the Santarcangelo Festival, as well as in squats, apartments and self-managed spaces. “The Lair”, first feature film, premiered at the Thessaloniki Festival 2019. For the performance “SEBASTIAN” Nova Melancholia has won the Performance Art Award 2023 by the Hellenic Association of Theatre and Performing Art Critics. 

  As a visual artist he has been collaborating since 2014 with Kostas Tzimoulis on their joint multidisciplinary artistic-duo project VASKOS. Their practice focuses on performance, photography, drawings, ceramics, publications, and curating, exploring playfully the notion of artistic, sexual and national identity. VASKOS have participated in solo and group exhibitions, have co-curated art exhibitions, festivals and public programs.

  He has taken part in several bottom-up city movements: Mavili Collective (2010), Theatre Embros Occupancy (2011), Green Park Occupancy (2015). He is a founding member of the Institute for Live Arts’ Research (2010), and, since 2019, of the EIGHT/ ΤΟ ΟΧΤΩ - critical institute for arts and politics.

  https://vaskos.net/
  https://8athens.wordpress.com/
  https://mavilicollective.wordpress.com/
  https://liveartsinstitute.wordpress.com/the-institute/ 
  https://biblionet.gr/ 

   

   

• Kostas Tzimoulis

  

  He is a visual artist based in Athens. In his work he experiments with various mediums such as sculpture, video, photography, performance and publications. His work evolves around the issues of boundaries between private and public, home and city, inside and outside. The exploration of the boundaries has been primal in his work, in a conscious but mostly subconscious level. He seems to be attracted by places or areas that stand in-between two contrasting situations. 

  He studied visual arts at the ASFA and pursued postgraduate studies at Westminster University, London and the Dutch Art Institute, Arnhem. He has presented five solo exhibitions in Athens, Thessaloniki, Belgrade and Sarajevo. Since 2014, he has collaborated with Vassilis Noulas in their common visual project VASKOS. He is a member of the performance group Nova Melancholia. He was an active member of the Green Park cultural occupancy (2015-2017) and co-organized the DIY Performance Biennial “No Future” (Green Park Athens & Kythira, June 2016). Since 2019, he belongs at the creative team of EIGHT – a critical institute for arts and politics.He is currently an academic scholar at the Department of Culture, Creative Media and Industries at the University of Thessaly, Greece. 

  https://vaskos.net/
  https://8athens.wordpress.com/

   

• Vicky Kyriakoulakou

   

  

   

  She was born in Athens and works as an actress, director and teacher. She has a BA in Finance Management and Banking from University of Piraeus, a BA in Acting from Santa Barbara Drama School and a MA in Performance Making from Goldsmiths's University of London. She has co-founded Nova Melancholia in Athens (2006) -of which she is basic performer- and Vacuum Theatre in London (2012), where she acts, directs and writes. During 2017, she performed in the "Age of Innocence" by Doukas Kapantais at the Onassis Cultural Center and in "Maritime Hot Baths" by Ilias Papadimitrakopoulos at Athens' Festival, both productions of Nova Melancholia. She also directed "Yvonne, the Princess of Bourgoundy" by Witold Gobrowicz, perforemed by Vickings, a group of students of hers. Finally, she presented at Battersea Arts Centre in London her last work which she co-created, co-starred and co directed with Kit Redstone, which is called "Pootopia"!

   

  vickykyriakoulakou@yahoo.com

  vickykyr.blogspot.gr

  vimeo.com/user14423505

   

• Despina Chatzipavlidou

   

  

   

  She was born in Kavala in 1971. She lives in Athens and works as an actress while teaching motion and contact improvisation. With her work she aims to the expression of personal freedom, grounding - consciously and without limits - in the body any other mental or spiritual impulse that arises during the creative process.

   

  She studied film directing at the Stavrakos School and acting at the Akis Davis theater workshop. Brought in the modern theater and improvisation by Roula Pateraki and Mirka Giementzaki, she studied the relationship between body and voice. She studied release technics next to Christina Kleisiouni, conscious movement, improvisation and contact improvisation. Trained in Authentic Movement (3 year program) by Helen Levidis.

  
  She creates shows of motionimprovisation and authentic movement with the "3=4" company. She collaborates as a dancer with the 'Helix' company. She directed and dramatized 5 traditional Greek tales in the show "And if you believe it", funded by the Ministry of Culture. She has choreographed the show "Cut project" for "Entropy" theatre in Berlin and Athens with the support of the European Cultural Foundation (ECF).
  He played in the movie "Thief or Reality" of Antoinette Angelides and was nominated for the National Actress Award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2001.

   

  She collaborates with Nova Melancholia since 2007.

   

  desapoin@otenet.gr

  contactiongr.blogspot.gr

   

• Alexia Sarantopoulou

  

  She was born in Athens. She is an actress and director. She studied Sociology in Panteion University in Athens, dance in Laban Centre in London and completed the Programme of Postgraduate Studies Research in Architecture: Design- Space- Culture in the National Technical University of Athens. In 2010 she started collaborating as an actress with the Italian theater company Motus. She collaborates with Nova Melancholia since 2014. She is based in Athens and in Rome.

• Dora Economou

  

  She is a visual artist based in Athens. Dora Economou visits places, text and materials she has had a relationship with, either literal or fictional, takes samples and builds them into sculptures. She contemplates on whether their memory can still be recognized once their evidence has been removed.

  She has presented four solo shows in Athens (A Modern Hug : 2013, By The Spring Of Production : 2011, Dekapedaugustos : 2007, The Lost State Of Grace : 2005) and participated in group shows nationally and internationally. Selectively: LUSTLANDS AT Family Business, NY (2013). After Abstraction, Greek Art Institute (2012). Monodrome: Athens Biennial 3, Greek art, Sem-Art, Monaco (2011). Cabinets of Miracles, Zone D, Athens (2010). Strutture Precarie, San Vito al Tagliamento, Italy (2009). Point of Origin, Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney, (2008), In Present Tense, Young Greek Artists, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2007). Art Fab 'Women in Europe', Saint Tropez (2006), 4th Deste Prize, Deste Foundation, Athens (2005). So much…so great…, Larissa Contemporary Art Center (2004). In March 2013 she started the fanzine “Kypseli”.

  She collaborates closely with the performance group Nova Melancholia and the choreographer Kostas Tsiukas .

• Emi Kitsali

  

  She was born in Athens in 1975 and still lives and works there. She is an architect and a teacher.

  She studied Architecture in Thessaloniki and received a master degree in Urban Studies in Paris. At the moment she studies once more in the postgraduate program Cultural Management in Athens.

  She teaches design and history of art in the secondary education and she works with student theater groups. In the past she has participated in architectural and urban projects.

  She is member of Nova Melancholia theatre company since 2006 as a graphic designer and more.

• Manolis Tsipos [active member until 2011]

  

  He was born in 1979 in Athens, Greece. He is active in the contemporary performing arts field as maker, dramaturge and writer. In 2015-2016 he participated as a choreographer at the Research Studios #2 at P.A.R.T.S. His staged work (performance/choreography) has been presented in Greece and abroad, in various contexts (festivals, biennials, conferences, site-specific).

  He is founding member of the performance collective “Nova Melancholia” - in which he has been an active member until 2011 - and of the Institute for Live Arts Research |Π|, both based in Athens. He holds a MA degree on Environmental Sciences and Politics [1997-2002]. He is a DasArts alumni [2010-2012]. In the past he has been the Mentor of the 3rd year students of SNDO in Amsterdam [2012–2015]. Often he works as performance/dance dramaturge for other artists. He also moderates workshops on the DasArts Feedback Method, internationally.

  As awarded writer of prose and poetry, his hybrid texts have been presented in the Avignon Festival IN, FRASCATI Amsterdam, the Greek National Theatre, the Athens Festival and elsewhere. Texts of his have been published in Greek and French.

  vimeo.com/manolistsipos