Gianna Gioni was born and raised in Athens. She is a graduate of Pierce College. He studied Theater Directing at the University of London (BA Goldsmiths University of London, MA Royal Holloway, University of London.) and English Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy of the EKPA. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Peloponnese and teaches Drama in the Master’s program of the private college Unicert (University of Staffordshire). He also works as a dramatist at ACS Athens schools.
He has translated and directed the following plays in England and Greece: Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett, Miss Julia by August Strindberg, The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Vouchek by Georg Buchner, The Grönholm Method by Jordi Galtheran and All I Know in Truth by Andrew Bovell. Her latest work The Children of the Sun, by Maxim Gorky, is being performed at Theater 104, Gazi every Sunday at 9:00pm until April 14.
– Gianna, what is art for you?
– Art for me is beauty and sharing. Beauty not only in your sense of aesthetic pleasure, but also in your sense of stimulating the mind and stirring the emotions. And the sharing that for me is the essence of your Art. My relationship with the viewer is the core and the question in everything I do. Every time I try to build an experience for him/her. A fascinating theatrical universe and I invite her to inhabit it, hoping that it will captivate her, shake her, haunt her. Every time I try to exceed my limits and take more and more risks, to be more and more honest, more and more open and vulnerable inviting the viewer to do the same. In a society that forces us to wear more and more armor to protect ourselves from the cruelty, individualism and cynicism around us Art is your Place to celebrate our sensitivities, vulnerability and our human essence.
-Tell us about some special moments from your school years at Pierce.
-At Pierce, for the first time I had the opportunity to connect deeply with people and form friendships that marked me for the rest of my life. Katerina Sarantidis, Fai Christodoulou, Eleonora Begli and Marili Voulgari, Anastasis Touros were the angels of my childhood. With them I came to know friendship as an ideal and as a value for the rest of my life. I thank them because they really enriched my life with childhood memories of love, joy and tenderness. I also met professors who gave me a lot and I will carry them with me forever. The humor of Stavros Tzoulakis, the poetry of Eleftheria Manda, the honesty of Vassilis Melas, the encouragement of Stella Stasinos…
-What supplies did our School give you, both for your life and for art?
-The school helped me a lot with my English as the level was very high and from the first high school we did classic literary texts and had American teachers. When I then went to English literature, the school seemed like a breeze.
-Tell us about the theater show “The Children of the Sun” that you stage at theater 104, in Gazi.
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“Children of the Sun” is a play written by Maxim Gorky in 1905 in Tsarist Russia. The story takes place in 1862 Russia in the midst of a cholera epidemic and is of great interest as it deals with the socio-political aspects of a biological phenomenon. It describes the attitude of the elites, scientists, artists and people of the spirit in front of a humanity that suffers and is affected by problems such as poverty, diseases, hardships. It is a work that with a lot of humor talks about very bitter truths.
In our performance, we have transferred the work to the present, attempting to confront the modern condition with the historical-political reality of the time, with the aim of creating something new through this conflict that may shed light on the way we perceive and deal with things today.
-You work as a teacher-dramaologist in schools. How does it feel to lead the new generation?
I don’t feel like I’m guiding anyone, instead I feel like the kids are guiding me. I am fortunate to work in an international school, ACS Athens, and to come into contact with children from different nationalities, religions, cultures and traditions, as a result of which I come out every day richer and fuller and wiser from my contact with the children. Children teach me daily what love means, respect for diversity, kindness and kindness.
-What are you doing these days and what are your future plans?
-At the moment I am doing my PhD on German theater and teaching at the private college Unicert (Staffordshire University). At the same time, we are feverishly preparing our next step with the Indigo Theater Project troupe. Each of our new shows is a journey that hides months of reading, research, study, analysis, discussions, fights, tests, rehearsals and very hard work from all of us. I feel very lucky because I have found people who share the same love, the same passion, the same dedication for what we do and we have been together since 2018 and I wish for many, many more years.