Introducing the team of Artistic Advisors who have contributed to the planning of the 2020 Athens & Epidaurus Festival.

Stefanie Carp

International Productions

Stefanie Carp is a dramaturg and artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale 2018, 2019 and 2020. She holds a PhD in Literature and Theatre Studies on the work of Alexander Kluge. Her close collaboration with stage designer Anna Viebrock and director Christoph Marthaler began in Basel in the late 1980s. She ran the Zürcher Schausplielshaus together with Marthaler before becoming theatre director of the Wiener Festwochen. She has also been visiting professor at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig and chief dramaturg at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin.

Evi Nakou

Artistic Research and Audience Development

Evi Nakou is a performer, sound artist and project leader with a diverse practice in the arts. Splitting her time between Athens and London, her work sits at the intersection of context-led devised practice and interdisciplinary performance. As a performer and sound artist she has collaborated with artists, ensembles and orchestras spanning a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines. Evi is the co-founder of the music ensemble Breakfast Club quartet, while she is a member of the multimedia arts collective Medea Electronique. She has performed at the Barbican Centre, Wigmore Hall, London, and SNFCC, Onasis Cultural Centre, Electric Lights festival, Athens, among others.

As a project leader, Evi has worked extensively in Greece and internationally including collaborations with the Barbican Centre, BBC Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Culture Mile, Drum Works, PAN Intercultural Arts for victims of human trafficking, Paxos International Music Festival, Edward Said Conservatory and Beit al Musica, Melissa Network for Migrant Women, Women for Refugee Women. As a tutor and mentor, she has worked with undergraduate and postgraduate students at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (2013-2016).

Between 2016 and 2019, Evi was appointed Head of Learning and Participation at the Greek National Opera, where she curated, led and produced a vast number of multidisciplinary projects in the community. In 2019, the Greek National Opera’s programme “Co-OPERAtive: an intercultural and collaborative hub for young people”, was awarded the 2019 Fedora Prize for Education.

Costa Pilavachi

Music

Costa Pilavachi has collaborated with most of the world’s top classical artists, as artist and touring manager, concert presenter or recording executive. Born in London to a Greek diplomatic family, he is now a citizen of Greece, Canada and the United Kingdom. He was educated in Greece, Egypt and the United States before settling in Canada in 1965. A passionate music lover from a young age, he landed his first job in music managing the classical department of a record shop in Ottawa while still a university student.

After a stint in artist management and tour production with Canada’s David Haber Artists Management, Inc., (1976-1979), he was appointed Director of Music at Toronto Arts Productions, the city’s premiere recital and chamber music series (1979-1981), followed by four years as Director of the Music Department at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, responsible for the resident orchestra, summer opera festival and other musical activities in the capital. In 1985 he left for the U.S.A., becoming the Artistic Administrator of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Festival, working closely with Music Director Seiji Ozawa.

His career in the recording industry began in 1989 as Vice-President, Artist and Repertoire of the Dutch-based Philips Classics label. Between 1997-2009 he served as President of three major classical labels: Philips Classics, Decca Music Group and EMI Classics. In 2010 he was appointed Senior Vice-President, Classical Artist and Repertoire of Universal Music Group, overseeing the artistic direction of the Deutsche Grammophon and Decca labels worldwide.  In 2016 he retired from Universal and now heads his own consulting and production company. Among others, he has advised Japan’s Saito Kinen Festival, Universal Classics and, currently, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival and the Greek National Opera. He also sits on various boards and advisory councils, including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the International Mozart Society in Salzburg and the Istanbul Festival. Since 2019 he has also begun a close collaboration with the classical streaming business Idagio and is a member of the Artistic Advisory Board. He is based in London and Athens.

Ilias Chatzigeorgiou

Dance

Ilias Chatzigeorgiou was born in Chaidari in 1983. He holds a degree in Philosophy, Pedagogics and Psychology from the School of Philosophy, University of Ioannina, with specialisation in psychology. He is a certified coach from the Association for Coaching and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He began dancing as a self-taught hip hop and breakdance dancer at the age of ten. As an adolescent performed in squares and improvisation contests. Since his university years and to this day he has engaged with many diverse dance genres. In 2006, he participated in the TV talent show So You Think You Can Dance, where he finished sixth runner-up. He subsequently performed as an actor and dancer in numerous theatrical productions. He quickly came in contact with contemporary dance and movement research.

He has been a professional dancer for the past sixteen years, with a rich dance and theatre background in Greece and abroad. He supervises movement in theatrical productions. His artistic interests include bringing together diverse dance genres and using them as a means for obtaining information in contemporary dance in terms of movement, style and performance. He has been a member of Aerites Dance Company since 2009.

He teaches dance and has been running dance workshops in Greece and abroad for the last fifteen years. He has been one of the dance instructors-choreographers for adolescents at the Onassis Foundation “dancing to connect” educational programme since 2013. He has taught dance at the Avlona Prison for Minors and Young Offenders. He teaches pedagogics and psychology at the professional dance school Anna Petrova – Maro Marinou. He has performed in major festivals and theatres around the world including Fondazione Nazionale della Danza, Baden Theater, Onassis Culture Centre, Sibiu International Theater Festival, Dublin dance festival, Centre National de la Danse, Biennale de la danse, Kalamata Dance Festival, Mercat de les Flors, Tanzhaus NRW, Aerowaves Spring Forward, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Athens & Epidaurus Festival and many more.