Greek Dancing

A friend and I went recently to a Greek festival at San Juan Capistrano in southern California. The day was sunny and hot, the traffic from Claremont to Capistrano heavy. The festival unfolded in the buildings and open green space of the Capistrano Community Center.

There were several hundred people at the festival: some of them were probably non-Greek or Greeks who no longer spoke Greek. With a plate full of food in my hands, I had a difficult time finding people who spoke Greek. Finally, I joined a couple when the man said he spoke Greek. However, this second generation Greek probably understood some Greek but he could not speak Greek. He was born in Utah and his wife was a Mormon from Utah. He said he was Eastern Orthodox Christian and had no trouble being married to a Mormon. In fact, I liked his wife because, in contrast to his pro-Trump nonsense, she expressed uneasiness with the trashing of the environment by Trump.  

The Greek festival at San Juan Capistrano was a typical celebration of eating, buying stuff, and dancing.

Christian Orthodox churches have been using these festivals to raise money. Yet despite the commercialization of festivals, they remain popular and serve invisible and vital causes.

Living away from Greece, the Greeks in the United States find comfort in the Orthodox churches. Their priests speak Greek. Their liturgies also remind the Greeks the religious traditions of the villages or towns they grew up. So, in an alien world, the church and its annual festivals bring Greeks together, strengthening their friendships and community. 

However, it’s dancing more than anything else that reminds the Greeks they are one people. If the music is melodious enough to trigger an early memory of youth, there’s magic in the air. Suddenly, you find yourself in another world. 

Dancers wearing traditional clothes at the San Juan Capistrano Greek festival. Photo courtesy Gabe Silva. 

It happened to me at Capistrano. The music and the lyrics of a few songs, the beauty of a few women dancing, moved me at the speed of light to a festival of Dionysos. 

Dionysos, son of Zeus, was a god of wine, grapevine cultivation, rural traditions, and dance, sometimes frenzied dance leading to orgies: secret rites of Bacchos- Dionysos, and secret ceremonies. 

Celebrating Dionysos. Plaque about 400 BCE. Archaeological Museum of Melos. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos.

The Athenians celebrated the Great Dionysia and the Rural Dionysia. Dionysos was also next to Demeter in the Eleusinian Mysteries celebration, by far the greatest religious festival in ancient Greece.

Dionysos and Demeter, sister of Zeus, were privileged gods. They were all about life. Demeter was the outside world of food and seasons, the goddess of wheat and the cultivation and protection of the land. Dionysos was the inside world of the spirit, the god of ἒκστασις (eκstasis), astonishment, entrancement, and enormous enjoyment. 

We don’t really know the secrets of how and why the Greeks celebrated Demeter and Dionysos. But I guess these two gods balanced the intellect with emotion and desire for ephemeral and immortal satisfaction. Dancing allowed the celebrant to get close to Dionysos and Demeter. 

I think of Demeter as my grandmother. My real maternal grandmother was named Demetra.  But at the Capistrano festival, Dionysos was the right god for me. I abandoned myself to the dream and pleasure of living ephemerally in an ideal polis. All my knowledge and passion for that distant land translated into an intellectual and emotional reality of that moment of the dance.

I kept dancing without feeling tired. My eyes and smiles spoke loudly of my happiness. Dancing had been my highway for participation in the mystery of being Greek, that is, tasting the spiritual life of the Hellenes. I had moved to the world of Orpheus.

Orpheus was a great Hellenic hero. He lived in late thirteenth century BCE, a generation before the Trojan War. He joined in the Argonaut expedition to the far east for bringing back to Hellas the golden fleece. 

Orpheus was such a superb musician that his lyre and voice touched deeply more than humans. Animals and even plants , myths say, loved his music.

Orpheus playing his lyre to animals surrounding him. About 4th century. Aigina. Byzantine Museum, Athens. Courtesy Wikipedia.

So, music found a fertile ground in Greek culture. It became an integral part of educating the young. Athletes for the Panhellenic games like the Olympics trained in the rhythms and melody of music. Philosopher Pythagoras examined the mathematics of musical harmonies, especially the music of the star spheres in the cosmos.

Music was also essential in the daily feasts – symposiums -- and seasonal religious and athletic celebrations throughout the Greek world of the Mediterranean.

But it was dancing that brought all these traditions and pleasures together. 

Traditional Greek Pomakoi dancing at Mt. Pertouli in Macedonia, Greece. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos.

I still treasure my experience as a high school dancer. I led the line of senior high school young men and women. We were all dressed in traditional uniforms, representing the beauty and courage of another age. We danced in national celebrations. We were at the center of public attention.

This great tradition of dance mirrors the variety of cultural experience of the Greek people. It’s as diverse as the traditional clothing dancers wear.

But in general, and from ancient times, the Greeks hold hands and dance in a circle. People who don’t know each other suddenly are holding hands. They have a chance to know each other, even to fall in love with each other.

Seeing Greeks dancing today is seeing Greeks dancing centuries and millennia ago.

God Pan dancing with a woman. Notice the snapping fingers of his right hand. Oil-flask from Apulia, Italy. About 320-310 BCE. Courtesy Wikipedia. 

 Dancing documents the cultural continuity of the Greeks. Among other things, like the speaking and writing of the Greek language, it’s a pleasure that unites them.