CONTEMPORARY SOLO PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL

LÄBU

onoma:

by

MARIA PAPACHRISTODOULOU
Greece

Author and performer: MARIA PAPACHRISTODOULOU
Scenography: MARIA PAPACHRISTODOULOU
Sound design: TASOS ASONITIS and MARIA PAPACHRISTODOULOU
Lighting design: ROMMI RUTTAS and LEON ALLIK
Technical support: JESON JOY
Dramaturgical support: SANDRA KÜPPER and GIACOMO VERONESI
Producers: JÜRI NAEL and ANNIKA ÜPRUS
Thank you: CPPM cohort, Angeliki Nikolaidou, Sofia Patsinakidou and Tasos Asonitis
Production: CPPM | Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre
Premiere: 13 September 2025 Kanuti Gildi SAAL

“Οnoma:”,meaning “name:” in Greek, is a performance that takes the audience on a journey through shifting spaces of identity, challenging the performer physically and emotionally: a Maria among Marias, constantly trying to reclaim her name.

Her name is Maria. She was named after her grandmother. She didn’t have a choice, so she took it on. What is it like being a Maria?

A name can be considered an intimate space where identity exists. Using this idea as a starting point, the performance investigates and unfolds the identities within this mundane yet symbolic name. The name of the performer, but also the name of millions. Maria is an exposed personal space.

This solo physical performance incorporates elements of installation, performance art and physical theatre to explore the name “Maria” and the multiple identities, stereotypes, and stories it carries, shaped by the performer’s life, society, pop culture, and religion.

Her name is Maria. They don’t know who she is. But they sing her name, eat her as a cookie, and give her a kiss. They all know Maria, but they actually don’t. Who is she, anyway?

Maria Papachristodoulou

Maria Papachristodoulou (she/her, 1995) is a performance artist, an architect and a tea addict from Greece. Currently, her artistic research focuses on paradoxical connections between diverse elements of human experience, rituals and materiality, aiming to create absurd landscapes that feel both strange and deeply familiar. Her media range from movement, text, voice to visual arts, object manipulation and architecture.

She is an MA student in the Contemporary Physical Performance Making program at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, and she holds an integrated master’s degree in architecture engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH).