On Friday, October 31, the National Bank of Greece – Mastercard Awards were presented as part of grape 2025, the platform that promotes Greek performing arts abroad, at an event organized by the Athens & Epidaurus Festival at 260 Pireos Street.

The first prize was awarded to the theatrical performance The Old Women Who Gather Nettles by Konstantinos Dellas, the second prize to the dance performance Adequately Creative, written and choreographed by Konstantinos Papanikolaou (a co-production of the Athens & Epidaurus Festival and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center), and the third prize went to the play Clementines Without Seeds by Noemi Vassiliadou. The awards include significant cash prizes.

The event began with Ms. Katerina Evangelatou, Artistic Director of the Festival for the period 2019-2025, who thanked the sponsors who support the new creative generation of Theater and Dance every year to create their works and travel. “Grape has borne much fruit,” said Ms. Evangelatou, “and we hope that it will bear even more fruit in the future, not only in terms of production but mainly in terms of ‘travel’, of how these works manage to find their place in very large stage events in Asia, America, and Europe.”

The new Artistic Director of the Festival, Mr. Michael Marmarinos, pointed out that “It is wonderful that institutionalized entrepreneurship, which is now so mature, supports precisely what is developing, what is emerging now,” adding that during his recent visit to Asia, he met many curators and festival directors who spoke a lot about grape. “So we are on the right track, which will of course continue,” concluded Mr. Marmarinos.