Approaching Threshold Spatialities: The Example of the Theatrical Workshop Ι Want to fly of Eleonas Refugee Camp

Abstract

If space is not considered as an empty container in which the world of stage is constituted, but as a field that both shapes and is shaped by exposed identities, then identities-in-transition and the practices by which these identities inhabit the space produce possibilities for the emergence of liminal conditions and, therefore, new ways of the production of space. The performative practices of the theatrical process not only establish spatio-temporal conditions of the stage but also constitute multiple thresholds that capture passages between potential worlds and identities. More specifically, the research examines the example of the theatrical workshop I want to fly, which was organized in the "Safe Zone" of the Eleonas Refugee Camp from December 2020 to March 2021 with the participation of 15 unaccompanied minors. Through this example, the research examines the production of threshold spatiality through three different aspects: (1) through Turner's concept of the liminal practices in the inhabitation of identities and space (2) through the particular interaction embedded in the heterotopia of the Eleonas Refugee Camp (3) through the spaces of memory, experience, and imagination that emerged, within the context of the out-of-the-everyday condition that the workshop produced.