Greeks in Australia

Request from onsite storage

1920 to 1950

Summary Alternative Name(s): bill poster Copy of a poster used between the 1920s-1950s to advertise a performance in Athens of the centuries-old Greek Shadow Puppet Theatre (Karaghiozis) tradition. Dimitri Katsoulis brought posters from Greece in the early 1990s; the originals are held in a museum collection in Greece. Dimitri Katsoulis migrated to Australia in 1974 to escape a regime that repressed Greek artists. He had trained in Greece with theatre and film companies as an actor and technician. A master of the traditional Greek shadow puppet theatre, his performances explored contemporary issues such as the isolation of migrant women and children. Unable to obtain funding and support, he returned to Greece in 1991, leaving his entire collection to the people of Victoria. It includes 32 shadow puppets and around 170 props, set backdrops and technical tools and stage equipment. Dimitri has since returned to Melbourne and assists the Museum to continue to document this rich art form within both local and international contexts. The Greek Shadow puppeteers had this type of advertising poster as part of their puppeteering kit when they were doing tours in various parts of Greece. It is a work of the puppeteer and artist S. Kouzarou. It is a snapshot of a dance pose from the Introduction of a Karaghiozis play. It is a soldier from the revolution/uprising of 1821. Information supplied by Greek Shadow Puppet Theatre master Dimitri Katsoulis, 2007. Physical Description Small poster in portrait format, featuring a Greek soldier in a walking pose from the Greek Shadow Puppet Theatre in brown colour tones. He is in costume and bradishes a sword or large dagger.Top right hand corner has text in Greek [see inscrioptions for translation]. Significance This collection of puppets, props, stage sets, and technical tools and equipment relating to traditional Greek Shadow Puppet Theatre is unique in Australia and rare in international public collections. The history of Greek Shadow Puppet Theatre, its puppet characters and the methodology of its performance has been recorded in partnership with the puppet master to whom the collection belonged. The collection is highly significant both as documentation of an important cross-cultural, centuries-old art form, and as an example of the transnational migration of cultural activity between Greece and Australia. It is a collection which was created and performed in Greece and Australia from the mid to late twentieth century, by two puppet masters, who transported the tradition between two countries. Abraam Antonakos came to Australia in 1977 to perform the puppet theatre and then deposited the puppets with Dimitri Katsoulis, who had migrated to Australia in 1974. Dimitri’s story becomes one of migration experience, cultural maintenance and adaptation, and finally return migration and the discontinuance of this cultural art form in Australia.

Posters

2023-06-07