Thessaloniki cultural crossroads

Starting this year, the city of Thessaloniki will be hosting some of the world’s greatest cultures. This year, the admirable cultures of the Middle East will be honored all around the city, with a series of musical events, theatrical productions, film and documentary festivals, museum exhibitions from antiquity to modern times, culinary events, conferences and symposia, proving that a mystified east and an idealized west don’t exist in isolation from one another, but have always existed in a state of mutual influence.

Here you will find a brief presentation of some of the events which will take place in 2011.

Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art

The Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art proudly presents Roaming Images, Crossroads of Greek and Arab Culture Through the Eyes of Contemporary Artists.

The project researches the various concepts of image, or eikon (in Greek) or surah (in Arabic), along with the ideologies and geo-cultural climates that fostered them. The notion of image becomes therefore the universal vehicle that tells us the story of how we speak, how we think and even envision the future.

Appointed correspondent-curators will commission new works of art, organize site-specific projects or public art interventions, or put together lectures, roundtables, workshops or guided tours, accompanied by an artistic documentation. An exhibition at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art will be curated by Iara Boubnova as part of the Thessaloniki Biennial 2011.

Stations include: Muscat (OMAN), Sharjah - Dubai - Abu Dhabi (UAE), Doha (QATAR), Manama (BAHRAIN), Kuwait City (KUWAIT), Jeddah - Riyadh (SAUDI ARABIA), Damascus (SYRIA), Beirut (LEBANON), Amman (JORDAN), Tel Aviv (ISRAEL), Cairo (EGYPT), Nicosia (CYPRUS), Ankara - Istanbul (TURKEY), Thessaloniki (GREECE).

Url: www.mmca.org.gr

National Theatre of Northern Greece

The National Theatre of Northern Greece presents the “Sacred wedding”, a production of the Dance Theatre in collaboration with four Israeli dancers. The show consists of two parts: “Last Supper” and “Moments from the passion of Job”.

The National Theatre of Northern Greece will also stage the play “Dybbuk” by Bruce Myers, based on Salom Anski’s work. The play is a Jewish version of “Romeo and Juliet”, a love story enriched with music and rituals of the Jewish tradition, written for two main characters.

The productions will be presented as work in progress during May 2011 and shall be repeated during autumn 2011.

Url: www.ntng.gr

Thessaloniki  Cinema Museum

The Thessaloniki Cinema Museum, in collaboration with the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Israeli Film Archives, gladly presents the Greek-Jewish Miracle Festival, a production that brings to light important aspects of the symbiotic relation between Greeks and Jews for the last five centuries.

Three original films on Judaism and its interaction with Thessaloniki, created by Film School graduates, will be projected twice a day; a short fiction film, a short animation and a documentary. The films will be hosted in the Cinema Room of Old Warehouse A, of the picturesque City Port, where the recently renovated Thessaloniki Cinema Museum is premised, for their World Premiere.

In addition, a photo exhibition on ethnic diversity and memory will be inaugurated the first day of the festival, while the second day an elegant album with rare pictures and selected written sources will be presented to the audience. The third and last day, the Museum will host a gala dinner, where all guests will have the privilege to taste Sephardic cuisine and be ear-lured by Sephardic music.

Thessaloniki Documentary Festival SPOTLIGHT TO THE MIDDLE-EAST

The renowned Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, now in its 13th year, has since its inception
consistently showcased Israeli documentaries and hosted Israeli filmmakers, producers, journalists and other documentary professionals. This year’s 13th edition (March 11-20, 2011) is no exception.

In addition to the Israeli documentaries screening as part of the official program, many more will be included in the Doc Market, an important outlet for producers and filmmakers, through which film projects can reach buyers from all over the world. This year the Festival establishes a new collaboration with CoPro, an Israeli non-profit organization promoting documentary production in Israel by arranging for Israeli filmmakers to meet television executives and producers from around the world.

Furthermore, the opening film of the 13th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival is a co-production between Israel, Greece and France, something that will definitely enhance the visibility of Israeli film in the documentary community and will hopefully ignite a larger scale collaboration between the cinematic communities of Greece and Israel.

Thessaloniki Concert Hall

Thessaloniki Concert Hall presents chosen works from Turkey, Israel, Syria and Azerbaijan, with Yuri Zhislin (violin) and Vicky Giannoulas (piano) on April 9th, 2011 and the music ensemble “Me la amargates tu”, a tribute to the music of the Sephardic Jews with traditional musical instruments, on April 16th, 2011.

During fall 2011, Thessaloniki Concert Hall will host the opera “Samson and Delilah” of Camille Saint-Saëns, a two-day concert event with the participation of 10 pianists from Greece, Israel, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, USA, Armenia and Iran, in collaboration with the international non-profit organization

of Artists for Peace, and a concert with works of Arab and Israeli composers, using traditional musical instruments, in collaboration with a symphonic orchestra.

Url: www.tch.gr

Thessaloniki Museum of Photography

The Thessaloniki Museum of Photography hosts a series of cultural events and activities on photography which will be integrated in the Museum's exhibition cycle entitled “Dialogues. Artists from Greece and abroad” .
 

These series will encompass a collaboration between the Museum of Israel in Jerusalem and the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, for the co-organization of photography exhibitions from both the museum collections. It will also include the co-organization of a group exhibition of contemporary Israeli artists and photographic missions (original productions) of Greek and Israeli photographers in both countries.

These actions will cover the historical as well as the contemporary photographic periods of Greece and Israel and will also be accompanied by the publication of informational material, the realization of lectures and colloquia, audiovisual projections and workshops.

Url: www.thmphoto.gr

01/01/2011 - 31/12/2011

 

Source www.visitgreece.gr