Dimitris Bampilis
Country: Greece
Onassis Stegi
Biography
Dimitris Bampilis is a director and dramaturg based in Athens. His work merges reality with performative practices to engage deeply with socio-political issues and contemporary existential concerns. He studied Theater Studies (BA) at the University of Patras and Directing (MA) at the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki under the mentorship of Michael Marmarinos.
His artistic approach has been shaped by collaborations with pioneering artists and collectives such as Marina Abramović, La Pocha Nostra, and Rimini Protokoll in Berlin, reinforcing his commitment to interdisciplinary experimentation and theatre as a space for radical reflection and transformation.
His projects investigate fractures in identity, violence, human relationships and collective memory, particularly in times of crisis. Rejecting traditional artistic hierarchies, he fosters a collaborative process where director(s), performers, and audiences actively shape the theatrical experience.
His stagings and original dramaturgies have been presented at leading cultural institutions, including Documenta 14, the National Theatre of Greece, Onassis Stegi, the Greek National Opera, the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, the State Theatre of Northern Greece, ECC Eleusis 2023 and international festivals in Iraq, Portugal, Germany, Kosovo and Cyprus.
Portfolio & Latest Theatre Performances :
Portfolio
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e33NHiJgWDn3AjQ08Vvpv0KoBl5bvoB1/view?usp=sharing
Latest Theatre Performances
Babybird Babybird
Concept of the Performance:
Babybird Babybird, a personal tribute to Ken Loach’s film Ladybird Ladybird, starts from the central question « why do we (not) have children? » and invites parents-to-be, a new mother, a midwife, a demographer, a sociologist, a neuroscientist, an anti-natalist YouTuber and a stork to share their opinions on the complicated relationship between our sexual life and our reproductive potential.
While over the last few decades, ever fewer people in Europe are having ever fewer babies, a series of questions are raised: What do the numbers show? Did people stop having sex? Is it that people are not having offspring by choice? How do societal constructs intertwine with biological impulses? Using interviews and statistics, personal testimonies and scientific studies, discretion and humor, the piece intervenes into a debate that is constantly preoccupying the public sphere, while nationalist rhetoric about “Europe dying out” tend to dominate it.
Artistic Statement :
The future stands before us distant, on hold, more threatening than ever. Trapped in endless plans, we are constantly projecting our desires for “a bit later”, when conditions will allow, when our applications are approved, when and if we feel ready. A long now, constantly postponed, permanently suspended, indefinitely uncertain.
The question of reproduction, though, is deeply tied – probably more than anything – to how we actually project ourselves into the future.
When and why do we choose to have children?
How conscious is our choice not to reproduce?
Regardless of the spectrum of our different answers, there is one certainty: What should be our most personal free choice, becomes increasingly the result of exogenous enforcements beyond our control.
Would we choose the same under different circumstances?
Why don’t we create the conditions to fulfil our desires today?
Babybird Babybird serves as a public space for discussion, inhabited by such thoughts.
Trailer
