Yann Marussich – AGOKWA

At NOŪS Theatre – Creative Space, we continue our exploration of the fields of contemporary

performing arts and, in co-production with the transdisciplinary artistic platform Movement

Research Project, present to the Athens public for the first time the internationally acclaimed artist

Yann Marussich and the performance AGOKWA, for one performance only on Saturday, 16 May,

on the main stage of NOŪS – Creative Space.

Yann Marussich is among the most radical figures in international performance art, with a practice

that pushes the body to its limits and transforms stillness into a field of tension and absolute control.

He has served as director of the Théâtre de l’Usine in Geneva and founded ADC-Studio, while his

work has been honored with major international distinctions, including Ars Electronica (Hybrid

Art), the CERN Collide Geneva residency, and the Swiss Performing Arts Award.

AGOKWA is a ritual endurance performance that focuses on an almost vanished cultural identity.

The term Agokwa is used by Indigenous peoples of North America to describe persons who

embody the masculine and feminine elements in one body and one social existence. For centuries,

these persons held an active and often spiritual role within their communities.

With the arrival of European colonizers, the Agokwa were violently targeted and exterminated as

part of a broader process of colonial repression and the elimination of forms of life that did not align

with Western normative standards. Their history survives today as a silent yet persistent memory.

On stage, a body becomes immobilized and endures. Endurance is transformed into language, and

presence acquires ritual intensity. The work activates an experience of concentration, in which the

audience is invited to attune to the body and experience a state of heightened alertness and

embodied perception. AGOKWA constitutes an act of memory and an act of recognition — of the

histories that were erased and of the possibilities of existence that continue to be activated in the

present.

The performance is intended for audiences over the age of 18.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher NOŪS Theatre Creative Space