On March 17, 2025, Postdramatic won the OffFest Award at the Off-West End Awards 2025 (“Offies”) in London for its participation in the Voila! Theatre Festival 2024.
postdramatic | a solo performance
Composition | Performance | Direction: Thekla Gaiti
Concept, Lighting Design & Technical Support: Dimitris Nikolaou
Original Music: Stratos Sterianos
Movement Supervision: Iris Fousteri
Production: Experimenta Art Co.
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an urban swimmer is looking for the sea | a woman in quest of her identity in a fragmented, absurd, and ridiculous world
35 brief scenes capture fragments of reality in a relentless channel surfing stage
a heartfelt tribute to the Incomplete
a bizzare mosaic theatrical experience
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Postdramatic is a 53-minute solo performance – an original and heartfelt elegy to the Incomplete – that explores everyday reality through a fragmented, ever-shifting theatrical landscape. Blurring the line between the personal and the political, the playful and the unsettling, it attempts to uncover the hidden depths of ordinary experiences through a nonlinear sequence of 35 short, self-contained scenes, each lasting between one and five minutes and intentionally left unfinished. Time is a driving force and a restraint, embodied by the relentless ticking of a clock and a recorded voice announcing the remaining time every ten minutes. Each scene is abruptly interrupted by a three-second countdown, forcing the swimmer to instantly abandon her current action and move on.
At its core is the journey of a female urban swimmer looking for the sea – a poetic metaphor for identity in a chaotic and often absurd world.
Postdramatic rejects traditional storytelling, creating a structured yet absurd narrative that feels like channel surfing. Short scenes shift abruptly in style, theme, and emotion, mirroring the relentless pace of modern life. The performance integrates multiple genres – dance, singing, slam poetry, improvisation, physical theatre, monologue, and academic discourse – creating a dynamic and unpredictable stage universe.
A rich tapestry of cultural references interweaves throughout the performance, including contemporary music, literature, theatre, poetry, and scholarly texts. These scattered elements construct an interwoven reality that resonates both globally and locally and create a sense of familiarity and connection within the performance’s disorienting, mosaic-like structure.
Rather than presenting a linear story, the performance creates an ever-shifting experience that invites audiences to engage with its fragmented world on their own terms.
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Postdramatic performance had its debut at the Legs Athens Art Performance Festival on June 25, 2022, at the Bageion Hotel, lasting 12 minutes. Later that year, the 18-minute version was presented at the 10th Handmade and Recycled Festival at the Fabrica Art Space in Athens, followed by 10 additional performances during the winter. In May 2024, the 53-minute version of Postdramatic was performed in both Greek and English at the 2nd Thessaloniki Fringe Festival. The following month, a 25-minute version was showcased at the 1st Art Shelter Festival on Aegina Island. In June 2024, the full-length version was also presented in Athens. In November 2024, Postdramatic was featured at the Voila Theatre Festival in London, again in both Greek and English. Finally, the full-length version of the performance was presented in Athens in December 2024 and January 2025.
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awards:
Postdramatic won the award in the performance competition section at the 10th Fabrica Handmade and Recycled Theatre Festival held in Athens in 2022. In 2024, at the 2nd Thessaloniki Fringe Festival, it was awarded the Voila Theatre Festival award, as well as the Milano Off and Catania Off Fringe Festival awards. On March 17, 2025, Postdramatic won the OffFest Award at the Off-West End Awards 2025 (“Offies”) in London for its participation in the Voila! Theatre Festival 2024.
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awards:
Postdramatic won the award in the performance competition section at the 10th Fabrica Handmade and Recycled Theatre Festival held in Athens in 2022. In 2024, at the 2nd Thessaloniki Fringe Festival, it was awarded the Voila Theatre Festival award, as well as the Milano Off and Catania Off Fringe Festival awards. On March 17, 2025, Postdramatic won the OffFest Award at the Off-West End Awards 2025 (“Offies”) in London for its participation in the Voila! Theatre Festival 2024.
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Next performances:
• In Greek:
Monday and Tuesday at 21:00
April 28 & 29, May 5 & 6, May 12 & 13, 2025
• In English:
Wednesday, April 30, 2025, at 21:00
H.UG art space: Meliteon 14, Petralona
