What do folk songs have in common with hip-hop? The folk song “Dead Brother” with cyborgs and avatars, or with animals and mountains that talk to modern anthropoids? What does the love of the shepherd of Thassos and Golfos have in common with flirting and social networks? How do teenagers experience love? What words of love do they exchange? But why are we still fighting tradition or the 19th century play? How can we relate to that time? Really, can we?

His educational program Municipal Theater of Piraeus with the title “Greek folk culture on the stage of our digital world”, drawing inspiration from “Golfo” by Spyridon Peresiadis and the folk song Tou nekrotou adelphos, he tries to answer the above questions. In particular, in the premises of the Municipal Theater of Piraeus, children collaborate creatively in four subgroups: acting, scenography – costumes, sound and music and directing – video. The groups and departments then come together and jointly oversee the editing processes, leading to the final result, which is two short digital theater productions. The journey into popular culture and theatrical creativity ends with a discussion of the thoughts and impressions that were born in children on the occasion of participating in the program.

The program is aimed at teenagers from 13 to 16 years old, develops in three cycles with a total duration of one year – in each cycle, students get acquainted with the secrets of two different texts – and gives them the opportunity to get acquainted with elements of our popular culture and literature, introducing them simultaneously to the process of theatrical action.

The program, funded by the European Union through the NSRF, as noted by the artistic director of the Municipal Theater of Piraeus, Mr. Lefteris Yovanidis, “does not focus on the philological analysis of texts, but seeks to initiate creative experiments. He experientially shows that folk traditions are not a forgotten part of history and that with the right tools they can be both useful and creative. Oral narratives, literary texts and their characters are explored with the tools of digital reality, visual and sound art that young people use in their daily lives. Materials of tradition contained in idyllic bucolic dramas, costumes or folk songs are incorporated into new forms that will emerge from the use of modern technology.