Crossroads: From Thrace and the Black Sea to Cyprus

Crossroads: From Thrace and the Black Sea to Cyprus - from tradition to the rebetiko. By the Limassol Folklore Association - Giorgos Tziortzis - Chronis Aidonidis.

Α musical performance encompassing all areas of the Greek world. A voyage through traditional songs from Cyprus to Epirus, from Thrace and Pontos to Crete and from Smyrna to the Aegean Sea, from the deep past to present times. An imaginary voyage to places and times connected by speech, poetry and texts from the folk tradition to the rebetiko. The traditional dances with the local costumes will remind us of Hellenism’s ways of expression in different areas. And why not be happy and enjoy ourselves? Even during our most difficult times to unite and be brave.

PERFORMERS:
Katerina Papadopoulou
Nikos Filippides Orchestra
Rebetiki Kompania
“SERRA” Pontian Dance Association and the actor Takis Vamvakidis

Music direction: Giorgos Tziortzis
General production direction: Konstantinos Protopapas

LIMASSOL FOLKLORE ASSOCIATION
The Limassol Folklore Association was founded in the summer of 1977. With the recent scars from the coup and the Turkish invasion the founders started with the vision of protecting and projecting the pure cultural tradition of our land and aiming to pass on this rich tradition to the younger generations.

It is with great pride that today we look back to its rich work and to a series of distinctions that show our strong presence, from the beginning, to the cultural and intellectual events of our country. The Dance Group has repeatedly received awards in International Folk Dancing Festivals (1980 Dijon, France, 1988 Middlesbrough England, 1999 Zakopane Poland).

The Association continues to participate every year and so do the Children’s Dance Groups that participate in artistic events in Cyprus and abroad. Also, extremely important are the musical productions of the Association with dances and songs from various areas of Greece such as “Dances of the Hellenes”, “A stroll through Tradition”, “Uprooted Civilisations”, “Easter of the Hellenes”, “Remembering yesterday”, “At the wedding of Karagiozis”. In these events there was a collaboration with well known artists from Greece such as Domna Samiou, Chronis Aidonidis, Katerina Papadopoulou, Panagiotis Lalezas, Nikos Filippides and his orchestra, the orchestra of Thanasis Serkos and others.

Since 1993, the Limassol Folklore Association organizes, biannually, the International Children’s Festival of Folk Dances, that has now become a tradition and hosts children’s dance groups from all over the world.

The Limassol Folklore Association gives a strong emphasis on quality and the authentic presentation of our musical and dance heritage and succeeds in presenting it through endless research, collection, recording and processing of materials but especially keeping in close contact with specialized folk researchers. The result of the above is the fact that the Association has a particularly impressive wardrobe with authentic traditional costumes or true copies, from various parts of Greece and Cyprus, a film archive as well as photographic and visually recorded material.

GIORGOS TZIORTZIS
He was born in Laka Souliou in Epirus in 1953. At the age of twelve he takes the road to Giannena and Athens. There he comes in contact with the bouzouki, the guitar and folk music. He studies at the Greek Music School under Giannis Ioannides taking lessons in theory and rudiments of music. At the age of 19 he goes to Germany where he starts studying classical music and discovers the polyphonic music of Epirus, his homeland. He then goes to Paris where he comes into contact with ethnic musicology at the Musée de l’ homme where he attends seminars by musicologists from around the world. He comes face to face with authentic performances of what is known as rebetiko song. He establishes the group “rebetiko tsardi” and gives performances all over the world. After his tours abroad he returns to Greece and stays in Athens where he occupies himself professionally with the music and tradition of Greece.

He makes recordings, takes part in concerts, composes songs, composes music for theatre productions and writes his own songs.

CHRONIS AIDONIDIS
Chronis Aidonidis was born in 1929 in Karoti of Didimoticho in Greece. After the war, he moved to Athens where he studied Byzantine Music with Hatzitheodorou and Simon Karas. His work consists of around 45 discs and in the archives of ERT are kept many of his radio and TV broadcasts. Chronis Aedonides has participated in many concerts organized in Greece, USA, Australia and Europe. He collaborated for many years with the folklore researcher Polidoros Papachristodoulou, the chorus of Pantelis Kavakopoulos, the Association for the Promotion of the National Music of Simon Karas and the University Publications of Crete and Thrace.
He is a founding member of the Greek Music Archive.

Box Office Bookings

Nicosia:
Pallas Cinema - Theatre
Tel.: 22410181

Larnaca:
Larnaca Municipal Theatre
Tel.: 24665795

Limassol:
Rialto Theatre
Tel.: 77777745

Municipal Garden Theatre
Tel.: 25582268, 25344341

Paphos:
Citizen’s Information & Service Centre
of the Municipality of Paphos
Tel.: 80008181

Within the framework of Kypria Festival 2011