Nikos Saridakis
Set & Costume Designer
60 designers
57 projects
Born in Chania, Crete. He studied painting and set & costume design at the Athens School of Fine Arts on a scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation. He has designed set & costumes for the National Theatre of Greece, National Theatre of Northern Greece, several Municipal and Regional Theatres, Art Theatre Karolos Koun, G. Michailidis’ Open Theatre and many private theatres. He has collaborated with Greek directors, i.e. Kostas Bakas, Likourgos Kallergis, Vasilis Nikolaidis, Korais Damatis, Kostas Tsianos, Maya Liberopoulou, Andreas Voutsinas, Giorgos Michailidis, Yiannis Iordanidis, Tilemachos Moutsadakis, Stefanos Lineos, Vasilis Mitsakis, Karmen Rouggeri, Panos Papaioannou, Antonis Vougioukas, Varvara Douka and Elpida Braoudaki. As art director he collaborated with several advertising companies. He participated in the exhibition Theatre Costume of the National Theatre of Greece at the National Gallery (2003) in the context of Cultural Olympiad and curated the advertising and archival displays of the National Theatre of Greece at Syntagma, Omonoia and Ethniki Amyna metro stations (2007). Since 2014, he has collaborated with the Basil Papantoniou Foundation (formerly known as Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation) for the museum’s exhibitions. He curated the exhibition Greek fashion: 100 inspirational and creative years (co-organised by the Basil Papantoniou Foundation and the Foundation of the Hellenic World, 2019-2020) and the arrangement of Melina Mercouri’s costumes for the exhibition Remember me and love me at Gazi (Ministry of Culture and M. Mercouri Foundation, 2021-22).
The project is an adaptation of Menis Koumantareas’ novel I remember Maria. The Corfiot Alfredo (an allusion to the protagonist of Traviata) tells the (real/imaginary) story of his encounter with Callas, when in August 1957 he worked at the Grande Bretagne Hotel in Athens where she was residing. He was watching the dress fitting, the dress she would be wearing at the recital at the Odeon of Herodes on Monday, August 5. Callas’ figure in the white dress with the red poppies designed by the Milanese Biki was my inspiration for the prop that dominated the space determining the aesthetics of the performance. A dress-figure resembling Callas’ posing in photos – empty, bodiless, suspending high up at the centre of the space as a present/absent vision. During the performance, poppies appeared on the dress via projection mapping displaying the floral pattern. Then, poppies were distorted to vanish into a cloud of ashes – a reference to Callas’ scattered ashes over the Aegean.
Author: Menis Koumandareas
Direction – Adaptation: Varvara Dukas
Set – Installation & Costume Design: Nikos Saridakis
Music – Soundscapes: Apostolos Loufopoulos
Video Mapping: Dimitris Delinikolas
Lighting Design: Kostas Vlahos
Photos: Nikos Saridakis, G. Terzis
The project is an adaptation of Menis Koumantareas’ novel I remember Maria. The Corfiot Alfredo (an allusion to the protagonist of Traviata) tells the (real/imaginary) story of his encounter with Callas, when in August 1957 he worked at the Grande Bretagne Hotel in Athens where she was residing. He was watching the dress fitting, the dress she would be wearing at the recital at the Odeon of Herodes on Monday, August 5. Callas’ figure in the white dress with the red poppies designed by the Milanese Biki was my inspiration for the prop that dominated the space determining the aesthetics of the performance. A dress-figure resembling Callas’ posing in photos – empty, bodiless, suspending high up at the centre of the space as a present/absent vision. During the performance, poppies appeared on the dress via projection mapping displaying the floral pattern. Then, poppies were distorted to vanish into a cloud of ashes – a reference to Callas’ scattered ashes over the Aegean.
Born in Chania, Crete. He studied painting and set & costume design at the Athens School of Fine Arts on a scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation. He has designed set & costumes for the National Theatre of Greece, National Theatre of Northern Greece, several Municipal and Regional Theatres, Art Theatre Karolos Koun, G. Michailidis’ Open Theatre and many private theatres. He has collaborated with Greek directors, i.e. Kostas Bakas, Likourgos Kallergis, Vasilis Nikolaidis, Korais Damatis, Kostas Tsianos, Maya Liberopoulou, Andreas Voutsinas, Giorgos Michailidis, Yiannis Iordanidis, Tilemachos Moutsadakis, Stefanos Lineos, Vasilis Mitsakis, Karmen Rouggeri, Panos Papaioannou, Antonis Vougioukas, Varvara Douka and Elpida Braoudaki. As art director he collaborated with several advertising companies. He participated in the exhibition Theatre Costume of the National Theatre of Greece at the National Gallery (2003) in the context of Cultural Olympiad and curated the advertising and archival displays of the National Theatre of Greece at Syntagma, Omonoia and Ethniki Amyna metro stations (2007). Since 2014, he has collaborated with the Basil Papantoniou Foundation (formerly known as Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation) for the museum’s exhibitions. He curated the exhibition Greek fashion: 100 inspirational and creative years (co-organised by the Basil Papantoniou Foundation and the Foundation of the Hellenic World, 2019-2020) and the arrangement of Melina Mercouri’s costumes for the exhibition Remember me and love me at Gazi (Ministry of Culture and M. Mercouri Foundation, 2021-22).
Author: Menis Koumandareas
Direction – Adaptation: Varvara Dukas
Set – Installation & Costume Design: Nikos Saridakis
Music – Soundscapes: Apostolos Loufopoulos
Video Mapping: Dimitris Delinikolas
Lighting Design: Kostas Vlahos
Photos: Nikos Saridakis, G. Terzis
