Description of the project

The project titled “THALASSA OF MYTHS” is a project that intends to promote the national cultural heritage of each and
every project partners’ country. Even further, it wants to reach and locate the common cultural elements that exist in the
traditions of the European countries, by examining a sector both quite unknown and despised as the sector of the oral
narration (exposed thus to the danger of disappearance.) In other words, by examining the sector of the fairy tale.
The fairy tale is a short popular story that includes in a concentrated form all these elements that constitute the cultural
perception of a whole nation. It synthesizes the people’s mythology, constituting an imaginary narration that embodies the
wisdom of a people, its experiences and its history. In this respect, Europe at large is an aggregation of peoples, that,
independently of their differences, they have common characteristics because of their neighborhood relations, expressed
through their oral traditions that can be easily propagated.
The popular traditional fairy tale is an ark which keeps all the cultural treasures of a nation (ideologies, attitudes, morals,
customs, religion rituals and ceremonies, beliefs, principles and ideals, costumery habits, and more elements of every day
life) that are kept hidden in the tales and wait for their decryption in order to provide their lessons. This fact can be achieved
up to certain degree through the printed tales, but many things are kept hidden behind the lines.
In this framework, the proposed project aims at working exactly on this oral character of the fairy tales and release all the
hidden meanings and values built through the passing of centuries. The project partners are coming from countries that hold
a deep tradition on the oral narration and posses a wealth of such records. In addition, the partners have been engaged in
the past with their countries’ oral tales tradition and they hold a wide experience on this subject. Moreover, the fairy tale is a
basic element of their art work not only in the area of theatrical performance, but in other forms of artistic expressions that
have used in the past (e.g. dance, music, puppet shows, road theater, etc)