Skip to main content

Dionysia 2015

Each spring, the Center for Creative Work produces and performs an original translation of Greek tragedy or comedy during the traditional festival time for the Athenian "City Dionysia." Directors, choreographers, costumers, musicians, and actors from the Honors College and Houston community combine to create a performance steeped in research and creative development.

In 2015, Dionysia will explore The City At War, "A Possession For All Time," based on Thucydide's History of the Peloponnesian War, through panel discussions and performances. 

The panel discussions are a new addition to Dionysia, with the goal to create and facilitate immediate discussion about antiquity and the contemporary world.

"By having panels, we can bring in writers, doctors, artists, and oil executives to discuss current events in the world and how Houston can handle them," CCW Director John Harvey says. "Dionysia 2015 is a way to link what's happening in the past and present, with ancient Athens and modern Houston."

Panels this year include the humanities, medicine, and energy, and each will be preceded by a choral tragic drama performance based on Thucydide's History of the Peloponnesian War.

All events are free and open to the public. 


Humanities and The City Panel

This panel will bring together artists, writers and historians to ask what is the role of writers in the story as witness. Panel participants include Honors faculty Robert CreminsDustin GishIrene Guenther, Honors student Sahar Sadoughi, and author Sehba Sarwar, moderated by Honors faculty member Hayan Charara.

Medicine and The City Panel

This panel will explore health policy, ethics, outbreaks and medical humanities. Rosalia Guerrero, from the University of Texas School of Public Health; Warren Lee Holleman, director of Faculty Health & Well-Being Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; Ricardo Nuila, professor at the Baylor College of Medicine and the Honors College; and moderator Helen Valier, director of the Medicine and Society program at the Honors College will participate.

Energy and The City Panel: The Decline and Fall of the Energy Empire?

Co-sponsored with UH Energy, this panel looks at how Houston stands by our resources and if we are vulnerable to other nations' larger oil supplies. Panelists include John Hofmeister of Citizens for Affordable Energy, Anne Korin of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, Mike Krancer of Blank Rome LLP, Joe Pratt of UH's Energy & Sustainability Program, and moderator Terry Hallmark of The Honors College. A reception with light refreshments will follow the panel discussion.