Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Ancient Corinth Museum


The Corinth museum has a fantastic new (2015) exhibit on "Corinth, a powerful city-state." It is one of the best I've seen in Greece. It is full of context, maps, history, and artifacts. It engages the viewer by asking questions for the viewer to consider (what would we know about these statues if the art traffickers who stole them had not been caught?).  Even the website for Corinth is good, with lots of information and videos.  Bravo.

At the very end was my favorite part:  a video about the sack of Corinth by the Romans in 146 B.C.E.  I loved it because it was a wonderful mix of history, modern technology, and a tradition Greek medium, shadow puppetry.  Shadow puppetry consists of flat, jointed wooden puppets on sticks or wires pressed up against a lit screen.  This is a very old tradition popular since Ottoman times.  The traditional story is of Karagiozis, a Greek trickster who is poor and hungry, but often triumphs against the Turkish Bey (or sometimes the Jew...this was not politically correct theater).

This is a brilliant use of the medium.  Greek children all know Karagiozis (he plays a similar role to Bugs Bunny, another beloved trickster character) as it is on TV and there are popular shadow puppet performances even today (we usually go to one in Flisvos, a beach near Athens), so the medium will draw them in.  It is humorous, also drawing people in.  It is inexpensive.  And it is VERY traditionally Greek.  I love the intertwining of modern, traditional and ancient. 









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