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                      Applause



                      Before 1976 and the beginning                 bats or other scary creatures bumping

                      of their partnership, Zouboulis had already   against the elastic sheet – these images

                      presented three happenings in Athens          spring to mind as phases of a mini-drama

                      and, by 1972 had invented his signature       which has you holding your breath throughout
                      material: a soft sheet of rubber which was    the 20-minute action.

                      to become a decisive element in the duo's     Words alone cannot capture and describe

                      subsequent activities.                        the element of the unique, the improvisations
                      Together they have mounted three actions      within a loosely defined framework

                      so far in which they have equal roles,        that permits different, spontaneous gestures

                      two in Italy and one in Athens. The latter,   and movements each time, based on

                      a very impressive event called                a laconic choreography, which is the spine

                      "Action - Memory – Transpositions,"           of all of Zouboulis and Grekou’s actions.
                      was accompanied by T. Antoniou's music,       Some of the phases of the work as they are

                      specifically written for the piece. The work  imprinted on the rubber screen have been

                      brings to life man's struggle as he writhes   transferred to plaster, but even that fails to
                      in a type of magma, struggling to come up     convey the tension of movement as it unfolds

                      for air, touching the surface and then sinking  before our eyes.

                      back in, with his body leaving only minimal   Only by watching the actual

                      bumps like a restless archipelago with the    performance/action can one experience

                      peaks of a continent that has sunk into the   the impact it has.
                      ocean. An embryo wrapped in the mucous
                                                                    Alexandros G. Xydis
                      membranes of the womb, trying to come
                                                                    Athens, May 1981
                      into the light; a man twisting and sinking
                      in the viscous wrapping of one of the most

                      consumable materials of our civilization;
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