"The Great Tamer" by Dimitris Papaioannou at Rivoli on 9 March at 9.30 pm

"The Great Tamer" by Dimitris Papaioannou is presented at Rivoli on 9 March at 9.30 pm and it repeats on 10 March at 7 pm.

Dimitris Papaioannou is one of the most acclaimed choreographers and visual artists in Greece. He conducted the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. Although fairly unknown in Portugal, his career already spans three decades with a distinctive and vast work.

His latest project, The Great Tamer can be described as pure circus nonsense. According to Papaioannou, this performance is based in the assumption that "human life can be a journey of discoveries, an inner archaeology, and the quest for a meaning".

The 10 performers on stage move to the sound of Johann Strauss II, and the result is, as renowned Dutch critic Wijbrand Schaap puts it "half an hour of a chain reaction, made of comic, beautiful and sensual magical images".

"The key issue is to dig and bury, and then to expose", the author reveals. And what's revealed are the mundane tragedies, the ordinary in our daily lives, embodied by two of the most iconic circus characters: the clown and the acrobat.

Dimitris Papaioannou urges the audience to "empty our lives", and give everything we can before leaving this world.

Performances:

Fri 9 Mar / 9.30 & Sat 10 mar / 7 pm 

Rivoli