direction, translation, music, visual and sound dramaturgy Violet Louise
peformers Aglaia Pappas, Violet Louise
sound design, studio production Studio19
lighting design Sakis Birbilis
video Vasilis Kountouris (Studio 19)
sound design Kostas Bokos (Studio 19)
costume design Lilian Xydia
camera work Blaec Cinematography (Aris Pavlidis), Studio19 (Vasilis Kountouris)
director’s assistant Sevastianna Anagnostopoulou
production Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2018
lenght 1 hour and 15 minutes
national première
played in Greek with English and Italian subtitles
Strange Tales was one of the most successfull performances of the Athens and Epidaurus Festival 2018.
Violet Louise, stage director, musician, vocalist and multimedia artist, presents the multimedia performance Strange Tales based on stories and poems by Edgar Alan Poe. Devices that produce sound, light and video, give the atmosphere of an audiovisual laboratory and create an organic environment for the spectators. The two performers on stage and the two sound engineers off stage act altogether like a multimedia orchestra.
Edgar Alan Poe through the calculated use of language, questions the nature of reality and human existence. Strange Tales is a story about the mystery of life and death. A mysterious girl visits a woman in a wheel chair and transforms her room into a laboratory of memories. With the use of technology (sound & visuals), the girl acts like a hypnotist. The woman starts to recall her past. Travelling back in time, she prepares herself for the last journey, towards the light of the eternal Life.
Strange Tales is a multimedia narration on Poe’s short stories and poems based on sound and music. Poe was quite convinced of the connection between music and literature. He experimented with sound and rhythm, using techniques such as repetition, parallelism, internal rhyme, alliteration. In his essay “The Poetic Principle”, he writes: «And thus there can be little doubt that in the union of Poetry with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the widest field for the Poetic development».
Violet Louise
From the press:
«Violet Louise, manages to express the world of the American poet ideally. She signs the translation, direction, music and audiovisual dramaturgy. Aglaia Pappas is an actress with marvelous technique: impressive. Her chemistry with Violet Louise, who sings Poe’s original poems in English leads to a performance not just fruitful but superb». – G.Sarigiannis / 4th bell
«Strange Tales gave “flesh and bones” in Poe’s poetry». – Tospirto
«During the Athens Festival, we watched, a creative composition of Poe’s texts directed by Violet Louise (Louiza Kostoula), tied harmoniously with electronic music, sounds and multimedia, and the intense performance of the two distinguished actors: Louiza Kostoula and Aglaia Pappas. An interactive myth drama, combining theater, concert and visual installation, with the actors acting as narrators, sometimes as rhapsodists, offering a new and at the same time “old” ……that opened for all the door to imagination, ………the only way out of the nets of an “unrealistic” and true reality». – Leandros Polenakis/Avgi
Violet Louise
Violet Louise is a stage director, musician, vocalist and multimedia artist whose research is on the field of multimedia narration. Electronic music and sounds is the starting point for her inspiration. She is influenced by pioneer composers of music concrete and performs solo, or directs small to mediums scale performances with performers, dancers, and musicians.
She constructs real time her multimedia environment, producing soundscapes, narrating or playing musical instruments, midi devices, cameras, and videos. Violet Louise looks at human’s behavior, theories of evolution, social issues as if holding a magnifying glass.
She studied classical piano and harmony at the National Conservatory of Athens and took her diploma in performing arts by the Greek Ministry of Culture. She worked as a performer and musician at the National Theatre of Greece, Experimental Stage of National Theatre of Greece, Athens and Epidaurus Festival. She has cooperated with established Greek directors, performing in major musical and theatrical festivals of Greece. She also writes music for theatre.
Since 2012, Violet Louise has been experimenting on multimedia narration, working on each part of her projects (music, sound, visuals, scenery). Some of her work has been presented at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival (Strange Tales), at the Archaeological Museum of Ancient Olympia within the framework of events for the Olympic Torch Lightning Ceremony (Trojan Women), at Michael Cacoyiannis Foundation (Theatres by Olivier Py), at the French Institute of Athens (words to animals, performance with Valere Novarina).