Antigone Now: From October 13-16 at the Onassis Cultural Center New York

The Onassis Cultural Center New York launches its fall season with the second annual Onassis Festival of Arts and Ideas. Antigone Now will be presented October 13-16 at the Onassis Cultural Center New York, in the Olympic Tower in mid-town Manhattan.

The story of Sophocles’ Antigone, an ancient Greek tragedy about personal conviction is the central theme for this year’s Festival. With bold and innovative programming, Antigone Now explores the myth through visual and performing arts, family programs, and digital media. The Festival will also introduce a galvanizing digital initiative, #iSTANDfor. Drawing from Antigone’s famed courage in standing for what she believed, #iSTANDfor will encourage young people around the world to share stories of inspiration and change via their social media channels and a dedicated web site. #iSTANDfor shines a spotlight on, and celebrates the young women and men around the globe whose individual and collective acts of heroism and bravery are changing our world for the better. Free and open to the public, Antigone Now at the Onassis Cultural Center New York (645 5th Avenue, New York, NY), will include over 30 events for participants of all ages and interests—on site and online.

“Focusing on the story of Antigone to promote a deeper understanding of how ancient Greek culture has shaped and enriched our modern value systems, Antigone Now will foster a dialogue among people from the United States and around the globe about many of the problems we face in the world today,” says Anthony Papadimitriou, President, Onassis Foundation. “Antigone’s love for her brother, her sense of duty and her courage to challenge powerful forces, especially as a woman, makes her an admirable figure. Her heroic story applies to many of today’s topical issues such as power struggles, women’s rights, societal laws and immigration – only a few examples.”

“Sophocles’ Antigone speaks to the values and perils of our democratic culture. In organizing this Festival, it has been extremely inspiring to see how artists and thinkers have responded so passionately to this Greek tragedy and the questions it raises for our fractious times, by creating works that call for positive action and unity.” –Amalia Cosmetatou, Executive and Cultural Director of the Onassis Foundation USA.

Through exclusive commissions and by building surprising connections, the Antigone Now program explores Sophocles’ play across an extensive and diverse range of artistic disciplines, presented by both Greek and American artists. The Festival’s #iSTANDfor digital platform will augment the program globally.

Antigone: The Story Sophocles’ Antigone is an ancient Greek tragedy about a teenage girl, who defies secular authority by declaring her allegiance to a higher law. Antigone, Oedipus’ daughter, wishes to bury her brother, Polyneices, who died in a brutal civil war against his own brother, Eteocles. Creon, their uncle, and new, untested king, who has just replaced the dead brothers on the throne, rules that Polyneices’ body must remain above the earth to be ravaged by vultures and wild dogs, because he led an army against his own country, Thebes, and must be punished as a traitor. Anyone who breaks this law, Creon orders, will be put to death. Antigone openly and intentionally defies him, honoring her brother’s body with proper burial rites, following a higher law, one that transcends that of the state—divine law. Creon is then forced, by his own political rhetoric, and by the fragile authority that he has barely begun to establish since the civil war, to make an example of his niece, by sentencing her to death. In the process of following through with his own decree, Creon loses everything: his son—who was engaged to marry Antigone—his wife, his throne, and the order he struggled so hard to defend. At its core, Antigone is a play about what happens when personal conviction and state law clash, raising the question: When everyone is right (or feels justified), how do we avert the violence that will inevitably take place?

A full schedule of Festival events and a complete list of participants is available at www.onassisfestivalny.org.