OCT31 // DAY7
In memory of Sarantos Koutris
We learned today of the death of an elder of the local village Sellasia Sarantos Koutris, which has deeply affected the community. This has had an impact on our plans to present our projects to the villagers on Sunday, as that will be a day of mourning. We express our heartfelt condolences to the Koutris family, and this feeling has seeped into the bones of some of the projects that took place today. As a number of the projects took further shape, the video team conducted further interviews which have started to take a more conceptual/philosophical turn. As the residents now have a sense of the form all the projects are taking, the assorted aesthetics and work methods of everyone, and have developed greater familiarity with each other, conversations are taking more risks, while remaining friendly. The evening witnessed an eerie and atmospheric video shoot in the olive grove immediately in front of the residency, featuring a centrally lit space with smoke produced by burning incense serving as a container for carefully controlled movements by two dancers. This piece manages to express both our sadness at the passing of Sarantos, while simultaneously grounding this grief in the landscape that he was so attached to. We await the soundscape being composed to accompany it, to see what forms of expressiveness it may suggest. Perhaps as an act of catharsis this was the first evening that a full noise jam took place, and as the central work space reverberated with sounds simultaneously ugly and beautiful, we were all deep into the work needed to soon bring our projects of fruition. Our activities leading up to our presentation in the Sellasia this Sunday are focused on honoring Sarantos’ memory.