Portals at the former Public Tobacco Factory, Athens Greece, 2021) Transverse Orientation (2021) Post-Edafos work Athens 2004 Olympic Ceremonies In 2001, Papaioannou was appointed Artistic Director of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games by Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, President of the Athens 2004 Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. Three years in the making, the Opening Ceremony was hailed a "triumph" by Time magazine and The Times of London. In 2005, following the success of the Athens 2004 Olympic Ceremonies, Papaioannou received the Golden Cross of the Order of Honour, awarded by the President of the Hellenic Republic for outstanding artistic achievement. 2 On 24 November 2006, Papaioannou premièred 2 in Athens, his first work following his creative direction of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. 2 was produced in collaboration with the electronic music composer K.BHTA for the production company Elliniki Theamaton. A "dissection of the male psyche", the production commanded a large of amount of Greek press attention, not least for its open references to homosexuality. 2 proved a commercial success; its run was extended twice and over 100,000 tickets were sold in total. The work seems to draw upon a range of influences, including the work of Jean Genet, René Magritte and Robert Wilson. Inspiration for the show also came partly from Papaioannou's experiences as a gay man in Greece. Contemporary magazine described 2 as an "inspiring" work that "captures the zeitgeist". A DVD of 2, produced and directed for the screen by Athina Rachel Tsangari of HAOS FILM, was released on 11 December 2007 by Elliniki Theamaton and Modern Times. INSIDE Inside is a large-scale on-stage experiment by Dimitris Papaioannou that took place in a room set inside the Pallas Theatre in central Athens. Inside this room, for twenty nights in the Spring of 2011, a simple series of movements documenting our daily return home was uniformly repeated by thirty performers in countless combinations and superimpositions. Six hours on stage with no beginning, middle or end. Visitors could watch as much as they liked, sit wherever they liked, exit and re-enter as many times as they liked. The stage action began before visitors came in, and continued after they left.Inside encouraged audiences to treat the theatre as an exhibition space and the work as an exhibit, and to watch the action as if gazing at a landscape.Inside was