Greek dances of regions

Publication on the concerts of Domna Samiou’s group at the English Bach Festival (1975)

Greek music and dance is more pleasurably at home in the open air or the tavernas of its native land than in a London concert hall. But Domna Samiou and her group compensated for the formal surroundings of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where they appeared as part of the English Bach Festival, by the vigour of their performance and the regional variety of their program.

Imagination had to supplement the. compulsive rhythms of Crete or the haunting melodies of Thrace with memories of Aegean sea and sun and no doubt the shrill and harsh Macedonian zournas, a double reed woodwind, shares with the Scottish bagpipe the quality of sounding better in the hills.

Eight dancers, four men and four women, changed costumes and rhythms for each section: floor patterns, straight or semicircular, and steps were often similar, linked lines achieved uniformity of movement broken occasionally by elaborations from the male leader.

The most complex and inventive of these solo sections came in a set of Naoussa carnival dances from Macedonia, Cyprus produced examples of antikrystos dancing, when dancers face each other in pairs.