“The Burrow” with Savina Yannatou and Thymios Atzakas
Music performance based on Franz Kafka‘s work of the same name, with Savina Yannatou and Thymios Atzakas.
Written in 1923, shortly before Franz Kafka’s death, “The Burrow” is transformed into a musical performance for the first time: two musicians, Savina Yannatou and Thymos Adenas (Thymios Atzakas), perform it as a live event of sound, speech, and body—a continuous Kafkaesque transformation.
Yannatou’s voice leads the audience into an auditory labyrinth, where words, breaths, and whispers alternate and dissolve. Along with her, digital and analog sound personas emerge—inner voices that embody the mind’s inability to transcend.
Thymos Adenas’s four-channel composition combines live electronics, rare field recordings, and processed soundscapes from ethnographic vinyl records, inviting the listener to engage in deep listening.
Maria Lappa’s stage design, in dialogue with the aesthetics of Butoh dance and live physical art, creates an environment of natural materials, where body, voice, and sound coexist, while the digital projections by Alexandros Seitaridis enhance the creation of an ever-changing interior landscape.
“The Burrow” will be presented in Athens on March 20, 21, 27, and 28 (KET) and in Thessaloniki on April 22, 23, and 24 (Amalia Theater).
A few words about the story
The central figure of the narrative is a zoomorphic creature, trapped in the underground labyrinths of its refuge and in endless, but fruitless, reflections. This creature expresses a deeply human nature and, for this reason, concerns us more than ever: it deals with the noisy mind and fearful egocentricity of modern man.
The animal in “The Burrow” encapsulates our inability to escape the delusion of a biological brain that constructs worlds, space-time, beliefs, and value systems, without being able to transcend them.
A wandering body is dominated by a mind that is resourceful but fragmented, inventive and at the same time dark. It is a being trapped in a cycle of avoiding pain and constantly seeking prosperity and pleasure. It ends up fearful and self-punishing, ready to devour anything foreign and different — anything it never accepted to know or love.
Thymios Atzakas (aka THYMUS GLAND)
Thymios Atzakas is a musician, producer, and researcher. He is involved in music composition and production, Eastern musical traditions, free improvisation, and early music. Since 1996, he has performed at international festivals and participated in or curated numerous musical performances. As a soloist or member of ensembles, he has performed in Europe, the Balkans, Japan, India, North Africa, Central America, and the United Kingdom. Since 2024, he has also been performing as THYMUS GLAND, creating electronic soundscapes and compositions inspired by his personal collection of ethnographic vinyl records. He is a professor (PhD) at the University of Macedonia and a yoga instructor. Since 2006, he has been a founding member of the “Musical Village” and the artistic forum “to avgo” in Thessaloniki.
Savina Yannatou
Savina Yannatou studied singing with G. Georgilopoulou and Sp. Sakkas at the Vocal Arts Workshop and graduated from the PCS department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, with a scholarship from “Mousigetis.” She began her professional career working with Lena Platonos on the ERT Third Programme show “Edo Lilipoupoli” (1978–81). Since then, she has collaborated with many composers in the field of ‘entexno’ and contemporary music, while since 1992 she has been active in free vocal improvisation in the field of free jazz.
Since 1994, she has been collaborating with the Primavera en Salonico ensemble, performing songs from the Mediterranean and the Balkans at festivals around the world and recording for the LYRA and ECM labels. She has composed music for theater, documentaries, and pantomime performances, and her discography includes approximately thirty albums (solo and collaborations).
Maria Lappa
Maria Lappa (Thessaloniki, 1980) is a multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, contemporary art curator, and producer, specializing in Japanese Butoh and Live Performance Art. She has been studying Butoh for 17 consecutive years alongside important teachers (Ko Murobushi, Atsushi Takenouchi, etc.). Since 2015, she has been the Manager–Curator of the Movement Research Project platform, collaborating in Greece and internationally. Her collaboration with Olivier de Sagazan (2018) opened up a hybrid field between Butoh and visual performance. Her works have been presented in museums, festivals, and academic settings, with grants from NEON and the Ministry of Culture. In 2025, she co-founded the Ma International Center for Performance & Embodied Research in Thessaloniki.
Alexandros Seitaridis
Alexandros Seitaridis is an interdisciplinary artist based in Agios Lavrentios, Pelion. He works at the intersection of technology and performing arts, composing image, sound, light, and human presence. He studied Computer Science, Multimedia, and Robotics and trained in theater, puppetry, and storytelling. As a video artist and lighting designer, he creates audiovisual installations, 3D projection mapping, and live visuals for theater, concerts, and site-specific actions, using lighting as a dramaturgical tool. He is a founding member of Fortunati Art & Tech Company, owner of Radio Art, and, since 2010, Production Director of “Musical Village.”