The Nicosia International Festival 2025 proudly presents its first co-production with the Municipality of Paralimni with the theatrical performance “My Grandmother Kyriakou”. This is a theatrical play by Andreas Nikolaidis about the life of Pelagia Kyriakou, not as a biography, but as a collective memory. As a voice that calls us to dance, to grieve, to celebrate, starting at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre on Thursday 4 December 2025 (20:30), before traveling throughout Cyprus. With actors Margarita Zachariou and Andreas Tselepos.
The performance revolves around the life and memory of Kyriakou Pelagia, the woman who became a symbol of Cypriot song and the musical tradition of Cyprus, through the eyes of her granddaughter Irene Pelagia. With the nobility, pride, but also the magic of an honest person, she began writing and singing the tradition at a ripe age, at the age of 60, inspiring even the younger generations.
Granddaughter Irene Pelagia
The musical direction of the performance “My Grandmother Kyriakou” has been undertaken by Irene Pelagia. As she emphasizes, “Kyriakou not only played the role of grandmother in my life, but was the reason and the occasion for me to be who I am today, as a person and as a musician.” “As long as I live, while I speak, young people, have fun, sing regularly, except when you are tired,” Kyriakou once wrote, and her granddaughter Irene completely identifies with her grandmother’s couplet. “It is one more reason not to sleep, but to sing to remember her regularly. And this time, so many others will sing with me.”
The writer Andreas Nikolaidis
The necessary research and writing of the play was undertaken by the writer and actor Andreas Nikolaidis. Andreas has written the prose pieces “Skull Hippocampus” and “The Island of Chalkountan”, the plays “Maria Callas, Before the End” and “The River” (Nicosia International Festival 2023), while he has written the screenplays for the RIK television series “Kamomata tzi Aromata” and “Trikymia”.
“It was a journey to the orchard of Kyriakou Pelagia, where the couplets blossomed and her voice watered the joys and sorrows of this place,” says Andreas. The research and interviews with collaborators of this great creator and especially with her family opened the “paradise” to get to know and discover the world of Kyriakou and bring this legend, now, of our Cypriot tradition, to life. “The more I got to know her world, the more generously its hostess revealed herself with the wealth of her art,” he notes.
The director Kleitos Kleitos
The performance was directed by the distinguished Cypriot director and producer Klitos Klitou (television series: "The Family", "Generations of Silence", "Wheel of Wrath", "Stone River", theatrical productions: "All About My Mother", "Meav Volan T'en Tziairon" (Nicosia International Festival 2024).
“There are voices that don’t just sing; they weave memory,” says the director of the performance. “With threads of lullabies and dirges, of hymns and festivals. Kyriakou’s voice was like that. It was the voice of the mother, the grandmother, the woman who dared to sing when her time wanted her silent. And through this voice, the whole of Cyprus found a way to remember and the youth to love the Cypriot song. This performance is a hymn to the memory that sings,” he adds.
Documentary theater
Documentary theatre has been growing in popularity in recent years across Europe. It is a genre that radically renews the relationship between theatre and reality, art and life, fiction and documentation, since it uses documents, in whole or in part, such as newspapers, interviews and others, as source material for the theatrical text. When it is constructed from the exact words spoken by people in interviews or testimonies, it is more specifically known as verbatim theatre.
Musicians:
- Lute: Kyriakos Hadjiandreou
- Violin: Nikolas Papadopoulos
- Pithkiavli, Lafta: Christos Isidorou
Warm thanks to the family of Pelagia Kyriakous for providing material and interviews for the performance.
Special thanks to Michalis Hadjimichael for the material from his personal archive that was used in the performance.
Duration: 90 minutes
Ages: Suitable
Tickets: From the website more.com and the box office of the Nicosia Municipal Theatre (Monday - Friday 10:00-13:00).
https://www.more.com/cy-en/tickets/theater/i-giagia-mou-i-kyriakou
