"The Naiads" in English

GREEK FOLKLORE ASSOCIATION “THE NAIADS”

SHORT CV

The Greek Folklore Association “The Naiads” was founded the October of 1998 in Athens, Greece. The Association, a non-profit club, was founded by 25 members, folklore scientists, musicians, choreographers, professors etc.

The choreographers are Mary Markaki and Vangelis Vrakas. Both of them have been dancers for many years at the Dora Stratou Theatre in Athens, as they were also members in many dance groups in Athens. They have spent many years on the research of Greek Civilization and they were those who had the inspiration of “The Naiads” foundation.

Main activities

Ø Courses on Traditional Dances, Instruments and Songs

Ø Participation with our dancing groups in performances in Athens, other cities in Greece and abroad

-Most Remarkable In Greece : many dance festivals such as at Argiroupoli, Kolonos, Katrakio Theatre, many music festivals that needed a dance group, such as at Vrahon Theatre with Giorgos Dalaras, Glikeria…., Opening Ceremony of Conflict Championship, Ceremonies of Athens Olympic Games on 2004 and many others, Carnival festivals of Municipality of Zografou and Piraeus (every year the last 6 years) and many other festivals.

-Most Remarkable Abroad: Marocco-invited by the king to dance in his palace, Belgium- performances of 10 days in many cities, Germany-festival of 8 days with participant groups from 7 countries, France-performances in Paris during 4 days and others. None of the festival had the character of competition and awarding.

Ø Organization of performances (not only with our participation, but also as choreographers we have organized many times performances of schools in children festivals around Greece)

Ø Organization of training workshops : we invite a teacher of dances that has also make research at his place of birth or origin, who teaches dances, songs, presents to us the costume of his region and brief us with infos from his research on the culture of of his origin.

Ø We organize every summer (July-August) a 10 days Workshop on Greek Traditional Dances. The participants are mostly foreigners that love Greek dances and they spend 10 days at Crete, in a 4 stars hotel on the beach. The attend 3-4,5 hrs/day dance courses from 5-6 areas of Greece, they have time to swim and relax and at nights we visit local villages that organize local festivities with live music, plenty of wine and Cretan specialties and have the chance to dance with great Cretan dancers.

Ø We danced in a production of 4 DVDs with 38 dances from the most areas of Greece “Dance in the Greek Tradition” that our teacher Mary Markaki shows each dance, counts the steps and the group dances

Ø Research on civilization from the whole World: Some members are occupied with the research, e.g. they look for carnival customs that were lost during the last year, they commit the elements and they produce/saw costumes that the dancing groups use them to show the customs in performances.

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