Golden Age

Lead Donor of the GNO

Ballet sponsor

The Greek National Opera Ballet presents the revival of the successful dance production Golden Age by Konstantinos Rigos on 13, 15, 16, 22, and 23 May 2026 in the Stavros Niarchos Hall at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.

Golden Age is a complex stage composition, an immersion into the past that serves as a multi-layered archive of experiences, images, and references. Through a unique artistic mixtape, Konstantinos Rigos revisits his own trajectory, spanning over three decades and extending from his early steps to the creation of his emblematic performative language. Elements from his career in dance and theatre return, transformed into a work that intertwines memory, irony, and nostalgia, creating a unique aesthetic and emotional landscape.

At its core lies the exploration of the relationship between the body, time, and experience. It showcases a setting where movement, speech, music, and images all serve as equivalent means of expression. The piece evolves through constant shifts between different forms of storytelling, sometimes fostering a creative dialogue, and at other times establishing a fertile contrast between the past and the present, the personal and the collective, memory and contemporary experience.

A decisive role in the performance’s dramaturgy is played by music, which is co-designed by Ted Regklis. The soundscape of the Golden Age creates a multistylistic environment, reminiscent of an endless onstage memory ‘party’, featuring musical themes by Verdi and Bizet, well-known Greek songs by Chiotis, Loizos, and Mamangakis as well as foreign influences from rock and jazz hits of the 1960s and 1970s. From the aria ‘Addio del passato’ and the line from Hotel California ‘Some dance to remember, some dance to forget’ to texts and songs performed by special guests, including Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Myrto Vasiliou, Dimitris Kapouranis, Idra Kayne, Dorothea Merkouri, Konstantinos Bibis, and Elena Topalidou, Golden Age aims to remind us that, since we cannot escape who we are, we ought to continue dancing to affirm our existence.

Konstantinos Rigos himself stamps his mark on the choreography, the track selection, and the production’s set, creating a stage world that balances the realistic and the dreamy, the personal and the collective experience. As he characteristically notes, ‘Golden Age—a new wave will sweep everything away, images from the past or the future, thoughts about love, faith, absence, and abandonment. The person and the place. Are we dressed or naked, like the emperor? Are we free or besieged? Are we God’s marionettes or travelers into the winter, always carrying the summer nights within us? Within a ring, we fight with our own selves or our own shadows, in both dark and clear blue lakes. Do we live in Neverland, utopian Arcadias, enchanted Cithaerons, utopias, or in invisible cities? Events that have left a lasting impact on our lives and humanity, a mixtape of music and songs played on gramophones, reels, record players, Walkmans, and boomboxes, along with a small orchestra accompanying the perishing humanity, just like in Titanic. A musical Babel. Are we looking for peace or a piece of ‘America’? What is this white noise surrounding us? Perhaps, it’s a wind that blows away these 35 creative years, exceeding the boundaries of thought, movement, performance, and physical constraints. After all, the body remembers! Once, I encountered a sad scuba diver who spoke to me about a wild happiness that resembles the Sleeping Beauty lying within us, ready to burst forth after an abrupt release in a hotel where the seasons drift past us. And finally, we go back to the initial question: Are you coming along on the excursion? Happy End.’

Erie Kyrgia collaborates on the dramaturgy, Daglara designed the costumes, Petros Touloudis is responsible for the art installation, Christos Tziogkas is in charge of the lighting, and Vasilis Kehagias created the videos.

Performing in the show are Vangelis Bikos, Anna Frangou, Manex Alberdi, Yannis Gantsios, Stavros Ikbal, Elena Kekkou, Yannis Mitrakis, Petros Nikolidis, Marita Nikolitsa, Daniele Pecorari, Stefano Pietragalla, Marta Rivero de Miranda, Yorgos Hatzopoulos, Despina Chrysostomou, and Elton Dimrochi.