Performing masculinity: A Fontanillean semiotic reading of Dimitris Papaioannou’s ‘2’
By: Daphne Mourelou
| ARTICLE INFO: Volume: 12 Issue: 01:Summer 2026 ISSN: 2459-2943 DOI: 10.18680/hss.2026.0007 Pages: 127-149 Lic.: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 |
KEYWORDS: Contemporary Greek dance-theater Masculinities Cultural critique Performance semiotics |
ABSTRACT
This paper examines Dimitris Papaioannou’s dance-theater performance 2 (2006) through Jacques Fontanille’s six-level semiotic model (2008), mapping the work from minimal signs to broader forms of cultural life to reveal its ideological orientation. Applying Fontanille’s six levels – Signs, Texts/ Utterances, Objects/Supports, Practices/Scenes, Strategies and Forms of Life – the analysis shows how 2 functions as a multi-layered semiotic system that deconstructs conventional masculinity, exposing its fragility and contradictions. Although 2 follows a non-linear narrative, its fragmented images and atmospheres produce a coherent aesthetic and semiotic effect through strongly visual staging that combines movement, music, speech, and song with shifting sets and props. The work revolves around the themes of existential loneliness, identity crisis, desire, male sexuality, communication deficit, objectification and alienation, placing the Mediterranean male within contemporary, urban modernity. Its all-male cast, wide use of modern settings (airport, office, gym) and contemporary pop culture references (videogames, mainstream film, football, Greek bouzoukia) frame masculinity as a constructed, performative identity. Ultimately, 2 exposes the social construction of male identity from childhood to adulthood, negotiating individual agency and the potential of alternative masculinities.
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