Arianna Economou presents the theatre performance Happy Happier Days
Following the solo performance Breathing Eye in 2021 and the walking performance- video – installation Meta in 2022, both based on Samuel Beckett’s Film, Arianna Economou continues her interest in Beckett, this time his 1961 play Happy Days, in her current theatre performance. Three shows are coming up at Dance House Lefkosia on May 6, 7 and 8 present the artist’s latest project.
In Happy Happier Days, she shares with the audience a look at the past, present and future – what has been, what could be – always seeking and defining the happiest of days. From this artistic position, she finds herself in an ongoing dialogue with the text. She confronts her choices as an artist from her early career to the present, through her personal memories and thoughts.
Arianna Economou herself notes: “Happy Days – written 20 years after World War 11, which ended with the disastrous nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan – had an effect on writers for decades to follow, especially on Beckett. He has set his play in a wilderness, a post-apocalyptic landscape where two survivors Winnie and Willie await their own end.
“My relationship with Winnie,” she adds, “is that at times I am her, at times I am myself, and occasionally we are together as we journey through life, through explorations in search of meaning. I make use of both the English text as well as the translated version in Greek.”
Alongside the performance, a showcase of material from the artist’s archive will be on display. This exhibit will relate both to the themes of the performance and to a research approach that takes as its starting point the question – what is the life of the archive and in what way do we activate it?
Happy Happier Days
Theatre performance by Arianna Economou. May 6,7,8. Dance House Lefkosia, Nicosia. 8pm. Tel: 97-772264