In his thirty years of work Papaioannou has striven to create a universe on stage that could be described as a dreamlike absurd circus. Human bodies become battlegrounds, interacting with raw materials, fusing into hybrids, giving rise to optical illusions. His rootedness in the fine arts gives his performances a strong visual feel, as he juggles teasingly with art-historical references, various practices of expression and performing, and ideas about our origins. Dimitris Papaioannou aims at an utter simplicity of appearance that is far from simple to achieve. His intention is to shed light on the sacred in the mundane.

We dreamt about it, Papaioannou made it happen

“Does one have to be Greek to cultivate the art of the fragmentary to such a degree? The Great Tamer is a staggering and occasionally monstrous composite of forms and images. The maiming of things and bones unearthed in the excavations amplifies a montage aesthetic (at best) and one of obliteration (at worst). It recalls an imaginary of dismemberment. Arms and legs are spread around on stage. Like archaeologists who reconstitute vessels or vases with fragments that are more or less mismatched, Dimitris Papaioannou engenders improbable human grafts whose joints defy anatomy.

One of the most moving moments in this painstakingly constructed assortment of parts gathers up the themes: The apparition of a man, reborn unexpectedly, resembling an antique sculpture. We dreamt about it, Papaioannou made it happen.”

Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde, 21 July 2017

“The Great Tamer, by the unruly Dimitris Papaioannou, is perhaps the discovery Avignon was no longer expecting: incredibly poised, mysterious and gripping, even though it’s a series of dream images or nightmares that fit together with fluidity, and the logic of a rebus. With its meaning never divulged or pinned down, what is shown on stage is all the more commanding.”

Anne Diatkine, Libération, 23 July 2017

“the Hellenistic nude, descendant of the Archaic period, forever marked the elegance of showing the human figure as it is and that all subsequent inventions simply follow in those same fascinating footsteps. This is the reason why nobody can remain impassive before such an image and it is precisely this that Papaioannou exploits, with great refinement, and assisted by well-focused and rigorous symbols of carnality, which eventually becomes transparent. It is exactly there where the Greek director goes to excavate. A labour that involves joining the fragments of a disaster just as cosmic in nature as it is quotidian, a modality of an archaeology of suffering, the attempt to put order to (or explain) the chaos that prevails”

Roger Salas, EL PAÍS, 13 July 2017

“He never belies his culture, or his roots, or denies the fact that he is a consumate visual artist, a tragedian and a Greek at heart. After wrestling with Sisyphus (in Still Life, in 2014) and the duet-masterpiece Primal Matter in 2012, a contemplation on the sacred and the profane, Dimitris Papaioannou has now approached the myth of Persephone in The Great Tamer, his latest, magnificent creation, convincing him to relinquish the role of true protagonist to the scenography itself”

Marinella Guatterini, Il Sole 24 Ore, 5 July 2017

“If the Greek director Dimitris Papaioannou wanted to allude with this stage scenery to the condition of his homeland, then he did it perfectly. If he wanted to give the absurd double-facedness of modern curricula a universal space, no less. Of course, the 53-year-old theater star from Athens wants both. Papaioannou – visual artist, comics designer, choreographer, cosmopolitan – has a mind for the big whole and a hand for the miniature. He can lead Olympic mass spectacles and invent intimate chamber play scenes. His art is accordingly in demand.”

Stephan Reuter, Basler Zeitung, 07 October 2017