PERFORMANCE
Andriana frequently writes texts or music and devises or directs performances of different sorts. Her work has been presented in venues around the world including England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Greece, The Netherlands, Germany, France, U.S.A., India and more. Here you can find some samples from some of those performances.
This is a 3 minute impression from "Lovyrinths", a performance for which Andriana wrote the text and co-directed it in collaboration with composer and performer Thanasis Deligiannis. Lovyrinths was performed in Orgelpark, Amsterdam by the ensembles I/O and Genesis. This is a performance about love and its unavoidable falls. Falling in love. Falling for someone (or something). Falling out of love. Or simply, falling. We take a peek in this kaleidoscope of deterioration and we see lovers alone, lovers in twos, but also the anonymous mass of lovers. This is where desire meets the dream of “the formula”. All the lovers are looking for the right ingredients in order to create the perfect love story. They are exhibitionists who attempt to hide their melancholia behind dark glasses very explicitly, they convince themselves that tonight is the night they’ll be kissed (every night), they pretend they’re patient, they wait, they try to make their beloved wait, they trust, they dream, they erase their egos and replace them with borrowed ones, they try to understand and demand to be understood; all rather dangerous games. And the more methodically and consciously they try, the harder they fail; the harder they fall. Their desperate joy pushes them to manipulation in order to achieve the eternal. They ignore the gravity of time because they want to float in the ether of love forever. But the only thing which is eternal is the fall itself. And it cannot be manipulated; not even repeated. Love is always surprising, even in its banality. Douglas Adams believed that the secret of flying was managing “to miss the ground”. He must have been in love when he wrote this.
This is a selection of snapshots from the performance of Jani Christou's "Epicycle" in Soundacts Festival 2015, Athens. The performance was directed by Andriana and was devised in collaboration with members of the Oiseaux Bizarres Ensemble and FYTINI.
You can read Andriana's interview to GREKA magazine about this performance by clicking here
Andriana collaborates with composer Thanasis Deligiannis very often and they have worked on some contemporary opera projects together. One of them was "Adrastea", for which she wrote the libretto and was performed in Amsterdam. The opera was inspired from the 2008 riots in Greece and draws from the myth of Dionysus, with Pentheas and Adrastea as the two main characters.
In December 2018, Andriana wrote the texts, performed and sang in a performance by members of FYTINI at the Greek National Opera's Alternative Stage. 'Queer Approaches to Lena Platonos' included covers of songs by song writer, Lena Platonos and was dedicated to the memory of gay activist, Zak Kostopoulos who was murdered in September 2018. Click here to watch a video with excerpts from the performance.
In March 2020, the performance "Prayers of Incompetence" for 5 singers and hyper-organ was premiered in Orgelpark, Amsterdam. Music was composed by Thanasis Deligiannis and texts were written by Andriana Minou. Click here to find out more about the performance.
Unlike "Prayers of Incompetence", ORFEAS 2020, a queer opera by FYTA for the Greek National Opera, was cancelled one day before its premiere in March 2020 due to covid restrictions. Andriana wrote the libretto as well as some music for this project. The opera was finally turned into a film, ORFEAS2021 and has been screened in various prestigious international film festivals, such as the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Berlin Greek Film Festival and Wicked Queer Festival Boston. It has received amazing reviews, which you may read as well as find out more about this project at its official webpage .