Category: Greek dance

Almost Back to Normal

We pushed, pulled, tugged, packed, unpacked, yelled, laughed, ate the wrong things, sometimes didn’t eat, couldn’t fall asleep, woke way too early, and did it all over again the next day for four days. No, scratch that, five days including the Monday clean up.

Wait, scratch that again-every day since Memorial Day! Whew!

That flea market job at our church’s Greek festival is grueling work, but fun at the same time. All weekend we marveled at the crazy people and the general craziness of the whole thing. A couple of new volunteers said they had the best time with us and will be helping again next year.

I don’t even want to think about next year right now! My body aches all over.

Most of my Greek dance students

Want to see some happy faces? Just look at these kids! These are most of my Greek dance students at their final performance on Sunday afternoon. I can’t be sure if they are smiling because they’re happy or that it’s finally over, but they certainly are adorable. They performed so well, too.

Now that the festival is over I can get some sleep, get back to the easel and some normalcy.

Back to Monday and Painting

Monday could not come soon enough this week. What a busy, hectic few days I’ve had. The traditional Greek dance competition this weekend made my head spin with everything going on. Plus which the kids I teach had to perform, so making sure they knew their stuff was on my mind. They were great, though. I really didn’t need to worry. As they say, practice makes perfect! 

And that leads us back to painting! Practice, process, same thing.
The next painting was started last week, when I had a life. Okay, I’m being dramatic, but really, painting is the thing that ends up being pushed aside. Now, I don’t want to get into the “if I had to go to a real job” thing. However, the reality is that painting isn’t the priority, nor am I the person bringing home the bacon with my artwork. Maybe some day, but not now, so it has to wait.
It’s first on the to-do list and it will happen. Just not exactly when I want it to happen. It’s fine.
Another work begins
Here’s the next work on deck. Another still life watercolor painting of veggies. Shapes and colors if I squint at the small section of reference photo. 
Darks and lights. Small size, short and sweet. Works for me.

Greek Independence Day Parade NYC

Another year, another parade day. Sunday marked 74 years the Greek Independence Day Parade event in New York City on 5th Avenue. You might like to click on the links for info and past posts about the parade.
As a kid attending Greek Afternoon School, we were required to march with our classmates. If you did not march, you received a zero grade for participation. As an adult I can’t miss it. I’ve marched as a teen, with my kids in a stroller as a young mom, with their Greek school class, and later as members of the dance group.  
It was a cold, damp day this year and the costume that my sister and I get to wear almost every year is heavy with layers and warm. This dress of the Greek nomads, the Sarakatsani, is one of my favorites and very different from what people imagine is Greek.

 The tumult of dressing at the dance studio..

 Lining up on 64th Street and 5th Avenue..

 The Evzones from Athens, Greece

A friend and fellow dance member, who sat it out this year, took this photo of me and the others in the group. The dancer near me was playing an oboe-type instrument called a “zurna” and we semi-danced as we walked the parade route. People are surprised by it as we pass and get excited, wave, yell. We get a kick out of it.

Okay, that’s over, now it’s time to get back to work.

The Long Weekend is Finally Over

Finally, the big, fat Greek festival is over and my job is done. Now I can breathe. Can you just pinch these little kids’ cheeks? These are my Greek dance students. They were so amazing, cute and worked really hard to pull off their year end performance of traditional Greek dancing. Look how proud they are. It is really hard to remember which foot is left and which is right!

The flea market was a success and all the people who worked with me and my co-chair really knocked themselves out trying to hawk our wares. Customers would ask us for a price and if they didn’t like it some would just walk away, others would look at me in disbelief (at .50!) and others didn’t mind a fun haggle.

If I had the idea they really wanted a thing, but would jump at a haggle I would say “Make me an offer and if I like your number I could say OK.” Then we would play a back and forth with numbers and when I’d say Yes! we’d all laugh and smile. Then I’d say “Wasn’t that a lot of fun?” Smiles all around!

Believe it or not, we have yearly customers. Some have purchased from us and we had fun in the sale, they return year after year like old friends. Then we have the crazy customers that return year after year. Those people want to take home bags of items for .10. Give me a break already. And they tell us their tales of woe. Hey, we all have a story, just pay the $1.00 and get going!

Late on Sunday we hold a bag sale. Whatever anyone can fit in the paper supermarket bag is $5.00. You’d be amazed at what people put in that bag and are thrilled to pay at the checkout. All manner of item is in that bag and it’s fun to watch the customers swarming with their bags.

I had my fun and now the weekend is over, thank goodness. Now I can get back to painting.

Photo for Friday

Chugging along on the latest watercolor painting and I see some darks creeping in in places. Well, something has to happen in between the figures. It can’t all be light, airy and flowery. I may lighten up the space from mid paper and up. I thought I would make believe the people were dancing outside somewhere, but I might practice what I’m planning on another paper.

I added values and skin tones while trying to give the figures some grounding or they will float. What else can I say? It doesn’t look like this is going to be a fun, free wheeling painting. Maybe trees and sky in the background will make it look more “fun”?

Whatever happens, happens. And that’s that.

March 25, 1821 Greece’s Day of Independence

“..Better one hour of free life, than forty years of slavery and prison.” ~ Rigas Feraios, Greek writer and intellectual of the era who conceived the national movement to oust Turkish oppression

Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha, Eugene Delacroix 1827

March 25, 1821 marks the day that Greece began to shake the shackles of 400 years of slavery under Ottoman Turkish rule. The Muslim world tried to squelch the freedom of a people and spread Islam as far as it could. Sound familiar?

This day of the anniversary of the war for Greek Independence brings out the pride of our ancestors. They tried hard to hold on to who they were despite the Turkish rulers who expected them to switch from their religion to Islam, to forget the Greek language and history.

The Greeks had to be Greek in secret, hiding in caves and secret places to teach their children after dark in the moonlight.

Φεγγαράκι μου λαμπρό,
φέγγε μου να περπατώ,
να πηγαίνω στο σκολειό,
να μαθαίνω γράμματα,
του Θεού τα πράματα.

My little bright moon,
shine on my way,
that I may go to school,
to learn to read and write,
and the teachings of God.

 

Today the Greek dance students I teach performed a few traditional dances at a commemorative luncheon sponsored by our church. I thought, how fortunate they are to be able to continue these traditions in the open, not needing to learn in secret, and how this freedom is easily taken for granted.

 

How cute and innocent they are! They did a good job performing their set of dances. What do they know about oppression, learning in secret, and the strife their great-grandparents had to be free?

Nothing, and maybe that’s the way it should be for now.