10 stops around China // Travelling... China

welcome // the festival // program // the emperor's nightingale // 10 stops around china // concerts // blooming of time // workshops

// afternoon zone // exhibitions // audiovisual material // organizing team // sponsors

Μυρτιά | 10 & 11 July | 20.30
Routes of Literature & Art: 10 STOPS AROUND CHINA | Promenade performance
Starting point: Kazantzakis Museum parking area
Free admission - Reservation is needed

Free Entry Passes will be available from the 5th July at:
Kazantzakis Museum, Myrtia
Astoria Theatre, Heraklion Centre | All days & 19.00-21.00
Eleftheroudakis bookstore, Heraklion Centre

China is like an elaborate theatre mask, or like the white mask covering the Asian face with multiple layers of powder. And the more we’re trying to make out the form that hides behind it, the more we get enticed by the magic and the mystery of this transcendent eternal face and, at the same moment, we lose our way. The sight of China seems to be carving our eyes. This is a mystery we can only palpate through the signs of history, of religion, of tradition, of art, through the symbols, the gestures, the colours and the myths.

This is the journey through our 10 Stops around China, inspired by what was seen through Kazantzakis eye’s in his own journeys and from China’s modern spaces of spectacles and culture, such as the Great World amusement centre of Shanghai (Dashijie), or the Guangzhou Cultural Park. Of course, we do not aspire to catch the mystery and the spectacularity of the Chinese face, but we hope that the 10 Stops around China will become an initiation journey to this exotic world of numberless gods, of spirits, of beauty, of balance between the extremes.

The aim of the trip is to share the experience of Kazantzakis, to feel and carve our own impressions. Let us therefore be enticed by the mysterious mask. After all, who says that this, the mask, can’t be the real face of China?

«Take this performance as you like, true or imaginary, but such is life. »
N. Kazantzakis, Japan-China

The village of Myrtia turns into a huge theatre to explore Kazantzakis’ China with the help of the wise guides, who are the only ones that know how to guide us through the intricate paths of the Far East!

10 Stops around China are becoming a meeting place of art and cultures composing a site-specific promenade performance, conceived, composed and supervised by Konstantinos Tsakirelis. Dancers, musicians, actors, puppeteers, acrobats, illustrators, set designers and visual artists from Crete and the rest of Greece, Europe and distant China join their forces and create a ritual to saturate our own senses, in a distant country, in a distant time.

Conception – composition - general supervision: Konstantinos Tsakirelis
Chinese artists’ manager: Miao Bin – Meet Culture
Assistant director- co-choreographer: Argyro Smaragdaki
Costume design: Konstantinos Tsakirelis
Costume making: Nan Teague
Technical crew: Back Stage
Lighting design: Giorgos Romas
Audio engineer: Manos Tsantirakis
Illustration of station totems: Kostas Kiriakakis
Hairstyling: Bikouti hair salon
Make-up design: Kryolan Professional Make-up
Make-up execution: Ι.I.Ε.Κ. ΜORFI KEPANSI Κε.Δι.Βι.Μ1
Wooden constructions: Tsakirelis Tsafantakis Furniture
Flowers & plants: Garden Centre Stelios & Stella
Artificial flowers & plants: Tzorbatzakis Flowers
Route schedule study: Lefteris Koufakis

The final composition was completed in cooperation with the participating artists.

On the decks of the after show party: Dj Konops

10 STOPS AROUND CHINA

3 - PRECIOUS RED PAPER
Shadow Puppet Theatre
alaluz shadow puppet theatre: Betty Kokaraki | Dimitra Konstantinidou

6 - THE PEACOCK AND THE ACROBAT
Peacock dance - acrobatic act
Maria Kritsotaki | Matt Pasquet | Tang Bin | Yang Wu

8 - THE PEONY PAVILION
Chinese Opera
Eleni Chaniotaki | Nikoleta Dafnou | Liu Xinran

9 - A PRINCESS AND THE YELLOW PSICHARIS
Chinese Language-Calligraphy
Gao Tianchen | Frixos Manasakis | Georgia Petrali | Zhang Di | Katerina Zouridi