{"id":854,"date":"2021-06-14T21:55:45","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T21:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/?p=854"},"modified":"2023-03-15T11:19:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T11:19:10","slug":"unstable-histories-repertoires-of-memory-and-the-making-of-public-spheres-in-contemporary-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/unstable-histories-repertoires-of-memory-and-the-making-of-public-spheres-in-contemporary-greece\/","title":{"rendered":"Unstable Histories: Repertoires of Memory and the Making of Public Spheres in Contemporary Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Philip Hager<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Starting from a 2019 activist intervention, whereby a group of women offered their own rendition of Monty Python\u2019s \u201csilly walks\u201d during a student parade that was part of the official celebrations commemorating Greece\u2019s entry in World War II, in this essay I seek to examine and apply pressure on embodied repertoires of national memory that are central to these celebrations. Moreover, I return to the 2019 activist performance to consider how performance might work to destabilise the grounds on which such repertoires are enacted and, therefore, stage history beyond the frames of visibility and legibility constituting the national subject.
Keywords: <\/strong>Greece, parade, nation, silly walk, performance of history, embodied repertoires<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 28 October 2019, the 79th anniversary of Greece\u2019s entry in World War II, a group of women activists that called themselves  \u201c\u201810 soldiers\u2019 of the critical art of acting,\u201d re-enacted Monty Python\u2019s famous \u201csilly walks\u201d at the annual student parade in the municipality of Nea Filadelfia-Nea Halkidona in Athens.[1]<\/sup><\/a> This \u201cemergency intervention,\u201d as they described it (Dionellis), offers a starting point for the discussion in this essay because, as I demonstrate below, it unsettled well-established repertoires of national memory.[2]<\/sup><\/a> As such, this intervention invited a re-consideration of the histories that are enacted on 28 October and the ways in which they are staged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her study of the embodied production and transfer of cultural memory, Diana Taylor starts with the proposition that performance\u2019s doings<\/em> extend well beyond narrativity and, therefore, that \u201c[e]mbodied practice, along with and bound up with other cultural practices, offers a way of knowing\u201d (3). Such an understanding of performance practices (and their study) that focuses both on the fictions and the means through which they are enacted is central to the analysis that follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This essay, then, is an attempt to respond to the invitation extended by the \u201c\u201810 soldiers\u2019 of the critical art of acting\u201d and think through the annual October rehearsals of national memory and their implications: I first consider the story that is commemorated every year on 28 October, and I ask what the significance of the particular national anniversary might be and what we can learn from this story about the formation of post-war Greek political identities. Then, I interrogate the performative repertoires enacted in these commemorative events and consider what they might suggest for the bodies performing the commemoration and the community they produce. In the final section, I return to the \u201c\u201810 soldiers\u2019 of the critical art of acting\u201d and their silly walks to ponder on how, by adapting the performative repertoires of the celebrations, they enacted a different commemorative practice that destabilised the repertoires of commemoration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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