Pantheon Urban Soul Festival 4.0

On Saturday 25th of September 2010, starting from 5 pm until 12 midnight, the fourth Pantheon Urban Soul Festival is to open its doors to the public for the within the Tripoli Public Park in the centre of Nicosia.

The Pantheon Urban Soul Festival has now established itself as a festival of arts organised by the Pantheon Cultural Association. Being the fourth year it is running it aims to keep its initial structure and enforce it with stronger features within each scene.
The Pantheon Urban Soul festival is an open-air festival of arts. It aims to bring together artists of all kinds (fine artists, graphic designers, sculptures, musicians, writers etc), in a common urban space in which they will be able to project their work and enjoy it with the wider public. Within this effort, a series of scenes and workshops are organised including music in the background and other visual elements such as art work and performances as well as a series of stalls which will set up and sell handmade items. All this will be scattered around the festival while for the smaller ones of us, a space dedicated to children will enable them to participate in their own, individual way.

The output of the festival is to form a park filled with arts, accompanied by music, drinks and food and sitting areas for the whole family.

As a cultural association we strongly believe that creating such events is essential not only to enrich and entertain the public but also to support and propel local, established and upcoming artists. This year the festival maintains the same scenes as previous years (see below) but also expands itself with additional scenes and art activities. For the first time, performances and interactive workshops will be incorporated.

The Pantheon Urban Soul Festival is divided into seven scenes which include:

1. MUSIC SCENE:
The music scene, the focal point of the festival, entails of both live and Dj performances. This year, the festival will have two music scenes. One of these being a Roots Reggae scene by the local reggae set up called Roots Crew (www.rootscrew.com). The other scene will indulge in presenting Djs and music/visual performances. This scene will include:

• Waves of Silence
• DJ Funk Jelly - Funk jelly comprising of the duo, yioti joans & theo will be your hosts in the dj booth mixing up a blend of sophisticated kinky nu jazz, bossa nova with lashings of funk and cool house. The duo having been on the dj circuit around the island decided to get together and promote their night with emphasis being on hip swinging uplifting lounge grooves with touches of retro thrown in for good measure=add to the mix zodiac who'll be on percussion to spice things up, funk jelly nights will truly be groovy.
• Druminspire and its students will perform a 15 to 20 minute show with 3 African drumming pieces - www.druminspire.com
• CDO Cyprus - A Capoeira performance of 15 to 30 minutes. This will be carried out by the students of CDO CYPRUS playing in the famous Capoeira Roda along with instruments. Uninteresting presentation for people to see what Capoeira is and chill for a while with Brazilian rhythms.
• Harris Kakoulli - Harri Kakoulli has been involved in writing, producing & mixing world music for the last fifteen years. He also has worked as an artist, writing & producing his own work. Harri produced, created & mixed the first two compilation albums Fuse 1 & Fuse 2 and recorded tracks as an artist, producer, engineer and writer under the name Loca with Natacha Atlas, Uzma and Zaharema for the legendary world music label Nation Records. Harri has produced, mixed & recorded tracks for the great King Sunny Ade, Talvin Singh, Aki Nawaz (Fundamental), Joi and the first four albums for the legendary Ukrainians. He worked for eight months in Nigeria with various artists and collected some unusual sounds for future projects. Since then he's been working on his own material in London and Cyprus. He is signed to Six Degrees Records (USA) Lad Records (Portugal) & Alien Temple.com (UK) At present he is recording his 5th album for Lad Records, and has a second release with Six Degrees Records. (www.harrikakoulli.webs.com)

2. ART SCENE:
The art scene includes a series of installations and art works created for the festival that will be placed within the park. Some of the artists participating are:

Tatiana Ferahian, Sasha Savic, Giorgos Achilleos & Antria Tselepi, Marilena Petrou & Nicoletta Karayiorgi, Flora Mavrommati, Mariza Bargilly, Christos Polydorou, Aggela Chimona, Chrisanthi Christoforou, Sophia Kalouli & Constantinos Evangelides, Poppy Aristidou & Maria Christoforou, Joao Teigas, Zurab Gulishvili

3. PUBLISHING/ HANDICRAFT SCENE:
The Independent Publishers scene will host various local and international creative producers that continuously promote their work through a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) approach. DIY is about taking control away from the corporate consumer influence and creating things on your own terms, promoting unity and communication diversity through a creative exchange. Zines (independently created publications), comics, posters, stickers, music, t-shirts and postcards are some of the communication mediums that you can expect to see in this section. Additionally, handicrafts such as jewellery, dolls and other small items will be on display. Most of these mediums will be on sale.

Some of these creators include:

Publishers:
- Bomba Books (www.bombabooks.com)
- Pantheon Cultural Association (www.pantheonculture.org)
- Alex Kouvaras
- Louvana Diskoi (www.louvana.com.cy)
- Zara Der Arakelian
- Costas Reousis
- Erina Charalambous
- Ioanna Philippou (www.ioannaphilippou.com)
- Tasos Anastasiades (www.plasticcomics.com)
- Accessarts (www.accessarts.com.cy)
- KidCulture Magazine (www.kidculture.com.cy)

Handicrafts:
- Larimeloon (www.pantheonculture.org)
- Marlen Karletidou (www.marlenartview.com)
- Artemis Evagorou
- Ioanna Kanari
- Twenty Three (Sophia Kakouli & Constantinos Evangelides)
- Zara & Robert Der Arakelian (pink-cloud.com)
- Christina Achilleos
- Antora Jewels (www.antorajewels.com)

4. CHILDREN’S SCENE:
Art teachers/ designers Mary and Irsa Phanis will lead the children’s scene with the help of marti school of art and design students.
The children participating will work under the theme ‘urban life’. Led by their imagination they can design, draw, cut and paste in order to create their own fantasy world of “urban life”.
The young artists and their work will co-exist and participate in the mood of the festival.
The children’s scene will also accommodate an exhibition by the students of marti school.

5. MULTIMEDIA SCENE:
The International Pantheon Xperimental Film & Animation Festival 8.0 will be projected during the course of the evening. Sitting comfortably on the grass, people will also be able to get a hold of the festival’s catalogue and follow the screenings. For more information on the screenings and artists please visit www.pantheonculture.org

6. WORKSHOPS
During the day, two Yoga workshops will take place carried out by Life Centre Nicosia (www.life-centre.org). One for children and one for adults:

• Kid’s Yoga: A fantasy game with exercises, inspirations, and creativity all derived from the representations of nature. These Yoga exercises originate from fairytales and songs meant to increase the interest and concentration of the kids. Along with the yoga postures, the kids do simple breathing exercises. During the concentration exercises, the kids focus on things, games, parts of the body, or situations which the instructor creates, and during these silent few moments, the kids learn to slowly focus, stay quiet, and listen.
• Relaxing (Yin) Yoga Workshop with Life Centre: Find Your Inner Source - Replenish, revive, balance and recharge! Find untapped inner strength and peace of mind with this calming, restorative Yin Yoga workshop.

  Learn the poses that target the meridians of the body that are directly related to stress, frustration, and decision-making; through this practice together with connecting to your breath and giving over to gravity and the state of "effortless effort," you create greater reserves to cope with the stresses of everyday and replace frustration with patience and peace of mind.

  Get to know your inner emotional landscape with this profound mind-body "un-workout." With the Yin practice of long-held, deeply relaxing "stretching" poses that open and energise the "meridians" or energy pathways of the body, we restore youthful joint mobility as we quietly collect and gather chi, our life force and we come to experience a multitude of benefits.

7. FOOD AND DRINK SCENE
Food and drinks will be available at the festival. This will include vegetarian food, savouries and other endeavours. A Caipirinhas & Mohitos stand will also be installed.