A participatory Forum Theatre performance by the Argolis Community Theatre Group “The Cicadas”.
Artemis, a young teacher returning to her home village somewhere on Mount Artemisio after being appointed to her first teaching post, finds herself confronted with a major development project that threatens to radically transform the place where she grew up. As the local community becomes divided between promises of economic prosperity and the protection of the natural environment, she searches for allies and ways to act in the face of decisions that seem to be made without the involvement of the local population.
The Return of Artemis is a participatory performance inspired by the contemporary social and environmental conflicts surrounding the installation of industrial wind farms in the mountains of Argolis. Through personal stories, documentary material, residents’ testimonies, collective memories, scientific evidence, and mythological symbolism, the performance connects past and present while raising questions about the relationship between people and nature, as well as the contradictions of “green development.”
Through a series of participatory workshops and creative gatherings, citizens of Argolis collaborated to create a polyphonic theatrical work on the issue of wind farms in the region’s mountains. Drawing on the methods of community theatre, the Theatre of the Oppressed, and documentary theatre, the production takes the form of Forum Theatre, where the performance does not end with the applause. Instead, audience members are invited to become “spect-actors,” intervening in the action and collectively exploring possible responses to the performance’s central question:
Who decides the future of a place?
The Return of Artemis approaches theatre as a space for democratic dialogue, artistic inquiry, and active citizenship. Through its participatory format, it seeks to transform a local environmental conflict affecting the mountain villages of Argolis into a universal question about power, ecological justice, and citizens’ ability to shape the world in which they live.
Collective dramaturgy and performance: Konstantina Delogianni, Rita Zikidou, Christina Zoniou, Christina Kleidona, Vasilis Klisiaris, Ioanna Kouna, Evi Bousia, Maria Panagiotidou, Soula Panagiotou, Chryssoula Tourlouki, Georgios Fragkakis, and Afroditi Chatziavanoglou.
Artistic and scientific supervision: Christina Zoniou, lecturer in the Department of Theatre Studies, and Vasilis Klisiaris, drama educator.
Production coordination: Rita Zikidou, drama educator.
The performance is the result of a collaboration between the Argolis Community Theatre Group “The Cicadas,” the citizens’ initiative “Free Argolic Mountains,” the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of the Peloponnese (courses Acting and Society I & II), the Arete Fund, and its cultural program “Telesilla Talks & Walks.”
