YOURCENAR/CAVAFY

The world-renowned poetic art of Cavafy (this is how the poet wanted his last name spelled) or Kavafis is the theme of the evening; his poems are recited not only in Greek, his native language, but in French, English, and Spanish. The union of languages and different voices restores subjects and emotions dear to to Cavafy, conveying the great poet′s universality to the audience. Cavafy said things that were not easy from to say. And he showed emotions that were forbidden in those years. The power of her poetry, which inspires and moves, is the cornerstone of the performance. Yourcenar′s texts - feelings and reflections on human beings that join to those of Cavafy - enrich the performance by showing the mutual influence between the two great authors.

Yourcenar reveals how a woman experiences love and desire, the passing of time, and the effects that history and politics have on one′s life.

Her lyrics also reveal a woman's feelings in the face of loss of loved ones, death, and loneliness.

The poems are collected in 4 sections: age, aging-love-history, politics and social life-nostalgia, death, art.

program

PART ONE: AGING

Charlotte Rampling reads

Marguerite Yourcenar

Mémoires d′Hadrien "Le paysage de mes jours..."

Charlotte Rampling and Polydoros Vogiatzis read.

Constantin Cavafy

Un vieillard, Voix, Rare privilège, Mon corps, souviens-toi

PART TWO: LOVE

Charlotte Rampling reads

Marguerite Yourcenar

Feux "J′ai connu des jeunes gens..."

Charlotte Rampling and Polydoros Vogiatzis read.

Constantin Cavafy

Sur le seuil du café, Dans la rue, Très loin, Grisaille, J′ai regardé si finemente, Il fait serment, Avant que le temps ne les trans forme, Au crépuscule, Reviens et prends-moi

Charlotte Rampling reads

Marguerite Yourcenar

Feux "Tu pourrais t′effondrer d′un seul bloc..."

PART THREE: HISTORY, POLITICS AND SOCIAL LIFE

Charlotte Rampling and Polydoros Vogiatzis read.

Constantin Cavafy

Who did... The great refusal, Délai accordé à Néron, Autant que possible

Charlotte Rampling reads

Marguerite Yourcenar

Comment Wang-Fô fut sauvé...

PART FOUR: NOSTALGIA, DEATH, ART

Charlotte Rampling and Polydoros Vogiatzis read.

Constantin Cavafy

Depuis neuf heures du soir, La ville, Ithaque, Dans un port, Prière, Cierges, Apports, Visions qui surgissent

The poetry reading is accompanied by Varvara Gyra's guitar. The piece Return closes the performance.

CAVAFY

Proud of his lineage and illustrious ancestors, Constantine Petrou Photiades Cavafy was born in Alexandria, Egypt on April 29, 1863. His parents, originally from Constantinople, came from from a cosmopolitan family with origins from Constantinople to London (via Alexandria, Trebizond, Chios, Trieste, Venice and Vienna). In Alexandria, Egypt, Cavafy began to disseminating poems and articles in Greek, choosing a particular publication criterion: he did not collect the texts in volumes (in fact, he refused offers from publishers in England and Greece) but published in newspapers and periodicals, later privately printing the texts on large newspaper pages from collect and distribute. A first volume of 154 poems includes his Poetic Canon (he had repudiated his first 27 poems) and is published posthumously in Alexandria, to edited by Rika Singhopoulo. The collection came out in Greece in 1948 and again in 1963 to edited by G.P. Savidis, the first to adopt the thematic sequence advocated from Cavafy. In 1969 Savidis came into possession of Cavafy′s archive by producing several publications including the incomplete poems (in 1994, to edited by Renata Lavagnini), prose (in 2003, to edited by Michalis Pieris) and commentaries on his poetic art (forthcoming, to edited by Diana Haas). The English public has known Cavafy since 1919 through the writer E.M Forster, who was familiar with George Valassopoulo's translations of his selected poems. The Poetic Canon has been translated a number of times over the years, notably from John Mavrogordato in 1951 (with an introduction by Rex Warner), from Rae Dalven in 1961 (with an introduction by W.H. Auden), from Edmund Keeley and from Philip Sherrard in 1975 (to edited by G.P. Savidis), from Stratis Haviaras in 2004 (with a preface by Seamus Heaney). Cavafy′s multiple translations ofopera attest to the still growing interest of the international community in his poetry.

YOURCENAR

Yourcenar, whose given name is Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour, was born to Brussels, Belgium, from Michel Cleenewerck de Crayencour, a French aristocrat, and from a Belgian mother who died ten days after giving birth to her. She grew up in her paternal grandmother′s house and her first novel, Alexis, was published in 1929. Her partner at that time, translator Grace Frick, invites her to the United States, where she will teach comparative literature to New York City and at Sarah Lawrence College. Frick would be her companion and lover from 1937 until her death in 1979. In 1951 Marguerite Yourcenar published Mémoires d´Hadrien (Memoirs of Hadrian) in France, an immediate success that won great critical acclaim. The celebrated novel, in the form of a long letter that the Roman emperor Hadrian writes to Marc′Aurelius, his adopted son and successor, is a meditation on love, life, and the triumphs and failures of the past. After numerous novels, essays, poems, as well as three volumes of memoirs, Yourcenar was elected the first female member of the Académie Française in 1980. Yourcenar lived most of her life in her home in Petite Plaisance, Maine, which is now a museum dedicated to her memory.

CHARLOTTE RAMPLING

An international diva with an ambiguous androgynous charm, aristocratic and unconventional on stage as well as in her professional choices, Charlotte Rampling made her debut with Richard Lester′s Not Everyone Has It, a film-manifesto of Swinging London (Palme d′Oro to Cannes in 1965), and then collaborated with important directors such as Visconti, Patroni Griffi, Cavani, Amelio, Allen, Lumet, Ozon and with great performers such as Dirk Bogarde, Robert Mitchum, Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, Mickey Rourke, Sharon Stone, Keira Knightly.

POLYDOROS VOGIATZIS

TRAINING

VEAKI School of Dramatic Art - 2003

SEMINARS

Ancient tragedy and comedy

Comedy of Art

DANCE

Graham technique of flow-motion, modern and jazz dance, tap

THEATER

2009 Reading of Cavafy's poems with Lambert Wilson at the Toulouse Reading Festival, "Le Marathon des Mots"

2009 La cage aux Folles(the musical), directed by St. Fasoulis

2008 Tzizzz...(theater-dance), directed by D. Kanellos

2007 Fragment (dance-theater), directed by S.Anagnostopoulou

2006-07 Without a Story, directed by K.Damatis

2005-06 The Taming of the Shrew, directed by K.Rouggeri

CINEMA

2007 El Greco directed by I.Smaragdis

TELEVISION

2005 The parliament (Alter channel), directed by Th. Antoniou

2007 The marmaides (Mega channel), directed by to. Aggelopoulos

2008 The 7 mothers in law (Mega channel), directed by Gr. Petriniotis

2009 Katiotakis-his life (Et-1), directed by T. Psaras

VARVARA GYRA

Varvara Gyra was born to Ioannina, Greece and has lived to Paris since 1998. She has won the following international awards: first prize in the UFAM International Guitar Competition, to Paris (France, 2001), first prize in the Ile-de-Ré International Guitar Competition (France, 2002), second prize in the Fontainebleau International Guitar Competition (France 2002), and first prize in the Panhellenic Guitar Competition in Ioannina (Greece, 1993). Varvara Gyra has performed in various countries-France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, and Greece, playing as a soloist with the Orpheus Orchestra of Sophia and the Mexican Classical Orchestra. She has been praised by critics and international audiences, especially for her performances at the National Art Center in Mexico and the Cabañas Cultural Institute, UNESCO′s cultural legacy. The compact disc La Guitarra en 3 Continentes includes the live performance of her performance at the 8th Capilla International Guitar Festival (Conaculta - Helenico, Mexico City 2006). Varvara Gyra recorded the Live! 2003 album that includes part of her performances; the artist also contributed to Francis Kleynjans′ album of guitar music, which will be produced in France. Varvara Gyra graduated from the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, and studied guitar with Roland Dyens (École ATLA), Francis Kleynjans (Conservatoire Nadia & Lili Boulanger), and Alberto Ponce (Ecole Normale). She began to studying guitar in Greece, and at the age of 19 graduated with highest honors. She won scholarships from from the Academy of Athens, the Alexandros S. Onassis Foundation and the National Foundation for the Promotion of Studies (IKY-Greece). Varvara Gyra is a professor of musicology at the University of Paris VIII and wrote a thesis onopera of Greek composer Jani Christou (1926-1970). She holds a master′s degree in musicology from DEA, University of Paris VIII, a diploma in musicology (Ionian University) and a diploma in Harmony and Counterpoint (J. Papadatos).

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