The Onassis Foundation is making a donation to the Municipality of Ioannina for the renovation of the Cultural Center's stage

The Onassis Foundation is making a donation to the Municipality of Ioannina to upgrade the Cultural Center’s stage technical infrastructure and support the people who work there.

The initiative combines new stage equipment with staff training and hands-on experience for the Center’s technical team at Onassis Stegi in Athens. The Onassis Foundation donation will fund the upgrade and modernization of twelve motorized stage equipment lifting mechanisms, known as fly bars. The new equipment will significantly expand the stage’s technical capabilities, enabling the Cultural Center to host theater, music, and dance productions with more demanding technical requirements.

At the same time, a training program for the Cultural Center’s technical staff is planned. It will begin on site, provided by the specialized company that will install the equipment, with plans for further training at Onassis Stegi. In this context, technicians from Ioannina will have the opportunity to work alongside Onassis Stegi’s technical team and gain hands-on experience with how similar mechanisms operate on its Main Stage. The infrastructure upgrade is thus accompanied by a transfer of technical expertise, ensuring the new equipment can be used effectively in the venue’s day-to-day operations and in the productions it will host in the near future.

This initiative is part of the Onassis Foundation’s longstanding relationship with Ioannina, which has taken shape through a range of cultural initiatives in the city over recent years. In 2020, the Foundation highlighted the intellectual legacy of Athanasios Psalidas, one of the most important figures of the Modern Greek Enlightenment and Ioannina’s history, through an exhibition and publications of archival material.

In 2023, Plásmata II, Onassis Stegi’s digital culture exhibition, traveled to Ioannina, bringing works of contemporary art, technology, and digital culture into the city’s public spaces and creating a new meeting ground with the public.

Today, this relationship continues through an investment in the city’s cultural infrastructure and, above all, in the people who bring it to life. Technicians, lighting designers, directors, and artists are the ones who transform a stage’s equipment into vibrant cultural production.

Through its donation to the Municipality of Ioannina, the Onassis Foundation is helping create the conditions for contemporary productions to be developed and presented in the city, linking infrastructure upgrades with the knowledge and practical experience of the people who put that infrastructure to use.