The Company KANIGUNDA was founded in 2005 by the director Yannis Leontaris and the actors Maria Kechagioglou, Maria Maganari, Giorgos Frintzilas and Rebecca Tsiligaridou. KANIGUNDA is not a theatre group in the conventional meaning; it is rather an open convention of collaborating whenever the need and the possibility of staging a performance occurs. The Company’s work focuses on the comprehension of texts, speech articulation and the quest for communicational conventions between the actors during the rehearsals’ period and the performances. In 2007 the Company broadened, as the actors Anthi Efstratiadou, Petros Malamas, Efthimis Theou, Marianna Tzani as well as the director Korina Vasileiadou joined in. Stage and costume designer Thalia Istikopoulou, as well as stage and costume designer Georgia Bourda are among the regular collaborators of the Company.
• During 2005 and 2006 the Company worked on Electra by Hugo von Hoffmansthal. The work was presented in the form of open rehearsals, as a work in progress, in Athens, Greece (Kratiras Theatre, October 2005 and May 2006) and in Thessaloniki, Greece (September 2006).
• During 2007 the Company worked on the metrical text Voskopoula (The Sheperdess) by a Greek unknown writer of the 16th century, which was presented in Athens (Amore Theatre, May 2007) and in Thessaloniki (Amalia Theatre, May 2008).
• In summer 2008 KANIGUNDA participated in the OFF Avignon Festival giving twenty-four performances of its earlier work Electra .
• Since autumn 2008 the Company had been working on Ivan Vyrypaev’s Genesis No 2, which was presented in March 2009 in Athens (Theatro Texnis Karolou Koun).
• In August 2009 the Company commences its collaboration with the National Theatre of Greece with a performance of I. Kapetanakis’ The Veggera, presented in December 2009.
• In summer 2010 KANIGUNDA worked on Shakespear’s Hamlet, presented in Kavala and Serres.
• In April 2011 the Company commences its collaboration with Onassis Cultural Centre of Athens, with the performance of City-State, based on a text written by the members of the Company.