‘Cultural Olympiad’ headless
Patrikios’s successor will be appointed in early January, the ministry said. Just over a year after being appointed to manage Greece’s «Cultural Olympiad» series of performing arts events leading up to the 2004 Games in Athens, poet Titos Patrikios has resigned, the Culture Ministry said on Saturday. A ministry statement said Patrikios, 73, wanted to «dedicate himself fully and without distractions to his poetry.» It added that Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos «fully respects the substantial reason and the noble motives» behind the decision. Nevertheless, the respected poet’s resignation is a blow to the «Cultural Olympiad,» particularly as Patrikiosãs immediate predecessor, veteran film director Michalis Cacoyiannis – the project’s first director – stood down three months after being appointed. He had cited insuperable bureaucratic impediments to his work. Initially ment to start in 2000, the 50-billion-drachma «Cultural Olympiad» eventually kicked off this year with a performance of Ianis Xenakis’s «Prometheus.»
