Ellada Evangelou, Gallatin’s Global Faculty in Residence comes to Gallatin from Cyprus. She has worked as a dramaturg, theater director, workshop facilitator, and independent consultant, in collaboration with theater companies, NGOs, and international organizations, including UNDP and the Anna Lindh Foundation.
We met with Dr. Evangelou to talk about her experiences working with Gallatin students throughout the fall semester.
Brander Suero: How about we start with you telling us a little about yourself?
Ellada Evangelou: I come from the island of Cyprus, which is a small island in the Eastern Mediterranean. I am by training a dramaturg, and my research revolves around theater, performing arts, and identity. In the past few years, I have also become more interested in the intersection between arts and activism. I’ve explored practices of arts for social change and arts for conflict transformation, mostly in my area in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, but also across the globe. I am also interested in how conversations are happening in the United States. I’m connected to the US through my studies; I earned my MFA in Dramaturgy here in New York at SUNY Stony Brook so I feel that I carry a connection with North America. I believe in the connections in scholarship between the various locations. I think that we learn a lot from comparative study so I am interested in how colonialism works, not only in the Mediterranean, but also how it works in North America, especially relating to conversations around race and wealth and even gender.
In the past three years I’ve also been the Artistic Director of a performing arts festival, called the Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival that takes place in Cyprus. Last year in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, we were very happy to collaborate with Gallatin Galleries to bring a little bit of that festival to New York City and online. So, as a practitioner, I work in the overall field of culture, cultural development and creating a space for artists to be able to present work.
BS: Can you tell us about your transition traveling from Cyprus and now teaching and working with Gallatin students?
EE: Well, the transition was a bit rocky at the beginning. The summer of 2021 did not make one feel very safe, with the ever-changing situation of the pandemic. At first there was this relief about having the vaccine, leading to the realization by the end of the summer of the resistance within parts of the population, to that strategy of protection. These conversations were taking place all over the world, these insecurities were very much a conversation that took place in many communities, mostly in the global north. Having this possibility of being safe through the vaccine, but then choosing not to take it, seemed like an unfathomable possibility at the beginning of the year. And then it’s important to place this discussion within the global one, and acknowledge the great global injustice relating to vaccines and their availability, what has happened with the emergence of vaccine nationalism, and how that affects all of us.
So let us just say that at the end of August I came to the city in the middle of all of these very conflicting global trends, but what I found was a really wonderful and open community. Both in terms of colleagues and staff at Gallatin, and the whole NYU mechanism which was geared towards making people feel as safe as possible. Therefore, it was wonderful to see that there was a lot of thought put behind the policies of the University. It was also great to see that, yes, we would be in class, but that there was also consideration about how we would feel safe, by a University that’s in the middle of a very, very busy city, and it did it! The University created a feeling of security, so that was great.
I love teaching, so it was a treat to be in the classroom with a diverse group of young people. Having a group of students from diverse backgrounds to talk about the Eastern Mediterranean, to talk about things that have been part of my life, from an interdisciplinary perspective, was great. It opened up new windows for me and, hopefully, for them. We all kind of dove into this adventure through the readings and a lot of conversation, as well as a fair amount of practice, we are making it through these past three months, in a collective learning process.
BS: Can you tell us about a moment or moments that stood out in your course, something you will remember once you leave Gallatin?
EE: I don’t think there’s one specific moment. There were just moments that made me very hopeful, moments of realization and paradigm shifts for students. I think there’s been quite a few of these moments, especially relating to what happens in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the course we are learning about and discussing the situations in Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel/Palestine, the correlation between the space, the people and the arts/performance for social change practices. What I’ve seen happen is a kind of opening of the possibilities of conversation. Throughout our discussions, a lot of the things that we take for granted, about power dynamics, about what happens on the ground, are re-negotiated and reconsidered. I see that there is an increased understanding of the complexities of situations, of the complex layers that need to be thought through, and a realization that they also have a position somewhere in those layers. They are not observers, they can participate if they choose to.
So I think that maybe, this class has opened up the students to the possibilities of one’s belonging into a conversation that at first seemed super complex and distant. There are no magic solutions in complex situations, but opening up the possibility for an undergraduate student to be part of difficult conversations is important. I think that this is what has happened with several students, and that makes me very happy.
BS: You are currently working with the Dean’s Honors Society, one of our Scholars groups, and are planning a trip to Cyprus. What are you most excited for the Gallatin students to experience in Cyprus?
EE: So yes, the overall topic of the class is arts and activism. I am very excited about this trip and hopefully it materializes in March 2022. There are two things that I am looking forward to. First of all, to open up this canvas that is Cyprus to the young people. Cyprus is like a time capsule and, in many ways you see things that you do not expect to see from an EU country in the 21st century, but then you also have this kind of modernity that has come to the island very suddenly and that has a very distinct character.
Because of its small size, the Island encapsulates a lot of different things, the past and the present and also maybe part of the future. I am very excited to share this with the students and Gallatin colleagues, especially because now we’re talking about the island and we’re talking about the different things that are happening there. I am looking forward to them experiencing in person what we talk about in the classroom, the aesthetics of the space, how it impacts the people, and how the division impacts their lives.
That’s one thing, and the second thing is, I am very excited about sharing with them through our visits to art spaces that, through our talks with artists, what is happening on the ground in an environment where arts and activism are often put together in a very specific way mostly about topics of conflict transformation between the communities, but also in relation to issues such as migration. Having the students make these connections with the artists and the space, I think will help them in their own processes and in their own positioning as potential artists and/or activists.
BS: Is there any advice you would like to impart on your students going forward?
EE: I. don’t really believe in advice, per se, what I would say is one thing that’s worked for me. So it’s kind of like a transfer of experience.
What I can say has worked for me as a scholar and practitioner is to, when you’re walking into a situation when you think that you have an aim and a purpose and a vision, the first thing that one needs to do is stop and do a mapping of what they have in front of them. Not to create idealized situations about how things are or what I would love to do if things were indeed as I thought they were. That our practice as arts for conflict transformation, arts for social cohesion practitioners, is to first be very honest about what we have in front of us, and then think very carefully about our own positionality in this. So, if one is an insider, or one is an outsider one, one has a short term or long term engagement with an issue or a group, one also needs to be very clear as to the approach, the methodology and the tools they are using, so that one protects themselves and protects the group from the process. We do theater, inherently in the performing arts we are very vulnerable, and the people we share our processes with are also vulnerable. So I think that any practice needs to come from a place of knowledge, of deep engagement with who, what, where, when all these things are taking place, and from a deep awareness of our own positionality and responsibility, as we carry out the work.
BS: Well, I would say that is very solid advice for Gallatin students. Are there any final thoughts you would like to add?
EE: I am a firm believer that no human being is an island. We cannot repeat the model of the 19th century, with the amazing creator alone in their attic writing away and creating masterpieces as a brilliant individual. This is a kind of dated type of perspective on creativity and it does not really reflect how our interconnected world works. Therefore, I would say again to just be present and consider our Community and our people.