Greece in USA in collaboration with the Columbia University Program in Hellenic Studies presents "Transhumance" by Phoebe Giannisi, a performative event and discussion exploring Giannisi's vision for a chimeric poetics that blends field recordings, state archives, and ancient texts.

The poetic performance Transhumance is based on the book Chimera (New Directions, 2024, translated by Brian Sneeden). In her third collection in English, Phoebe Giannisi lays out her vision for a chimeric poetics that blends field recordings, state archives, and ancient texts. The center of Chimera engages with a three-year field research project on the goat-herding practices of a community of Vlachs, a people of Northern Greece and the Southern Balkans who speak their own language and practice transhumance. In these poems, day-to-day activities such as shearing and shepherding mix with snippets of conversations, oral tradition, and song—locating a larger story in this ancient marriage between humans and animals. Through her poetry and fieldwork, this mytho-historical connection between metamorphosis and utterance takes form.

Following the thirty minute performance of Transhumance, we will open a discussion with contributions by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand, Daria Faïn, Neni Panourgia, Martha Schwendener and interventions by Rhonda Garelick and Catherine A. Peila

The performance and discussion take place at Greece in USA's non profit cultural venue, The Opening Gallery & Opening Art Initiative at 42 Walker st in Tribeca in New York 10013.