Premiered at the National Museum of Australia in April 2022, and now touring internationally in 2024! Here is one of the original promo movies:
Please see https://www.lukalesson.com/tour for the latest dates and venues – more performances being added all of the time, and already including Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Bendigo, and Byron Bay – and later in the year, Athens, Greece! Here’s how the National Museum of Australia described it when they premiered it:
Experience Agapi & Other Kinds of Love by renowned Greek-Australian poet and rapper Luka Lesson. Accompanied by cinematic scores and hip-hop numbers composed by Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s James Humberstone, this soulful performance will ignite your heart.
National Museum of Australia
Agapi & Other Kinds of Love tells the story of Socrates and his mysterious lover, Diotima. Inspired by his heritage, Luka takes the audience on a journey from ancient to modern-day Athens and shows us how love prevails despite the trials and tribulations of the ages.
Luka and I are working on the album and a series of video releases in addition to other exciting surprises.
Luka writes:
Based on Plato’s The Symposium, Agapi & Other Kinds of Love is a Modern Hip-hop Opera embedded in the Ancient Greek storytelling tradition.
Greek-Australian poet and rap artist Luka Lesson’s reputation as one of Australia’s best storytellers shines as he takes us on a journey through the Ancient Greek kinds of love.
Agapi & Other Kinds of Love begins with Socrates telling a banquet of friends everything he learned from a mysterious lover named: Diotima. The gods then take us on a journey – collapsing time and space to arrive in modern day Athens, where the two reincarnations of the Ancient lovers fall in love (again) in the midst of a riot.
Self-love, erotic love and familial love all collide with statues of Aphrodite, Molotov cocktails and the Parthenon steps.
Agapi & Other Kinds of Love shows us how love prevails despite the trials and tribulations of the ages.
Education Kit (Music)
I have created a free education kit for teachers to teach the brand new music of the show to all levels of high school students. Some performances in some venues include matinées for school students. Luka may also be able to run workshops in your school. You can access the education kit here: https://humberstone.craft.me/AgapiRiverside.
