Arete dancers honour Cyprus
18 March 20055
Oakland, California
The heavy Cypriot words, adorned with the oral acrobatics the song requires, rolled effortlessly off the tongues of the six vraka-clad lads. "Eshie-ve-re-ve ena-na-va-ra-va stron chen ve-re-ve mitsi...." Puzzled, I turned to Nicos Theophanous, Honorary Consul of Cyprus. "You said they're not Cypriots!"
They're not. The 20 members of the "Arete" folk dance group are Greek-Americans of various extractions, only one of them being a full-blooded Cypriot. But on Sunday March 13, at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in San Francisco, their programme was exclusively Cypriot.
The occasion was a reception in honour of the Ambassador of Cyprus, Euripides Evriviades who was on his first official visit to California. In the company of the Honorary Consul and dignitaries of the local Greek-American community, he was treated to a suite of traditional Cypriot dances, flawlessly executed in beautiful, authentic costumes.
Arete is the baby of sisters Irene Kyriacou and Lea Lyberopoulos. The 30-year old twins have been directing Greek folk dance groups together for 16 years and have been dancing since childhood. They both manage to juggle full-time careers in the accounting field (Irene is a CPA and Lea an auditor), families (both are married with young kids), while directing two dance groups, both based at the Annunciation Cathedral.
In truth, Arete is an adopted baby. It was established in 1997 by Irene's husband, Chris Kyriacou, who has also been involved in Greek folk dancing for many years. When Irene and Lea moved their dance group from another Bay Area church to San Francisco, they joined forces with Chris and Arete. Eventually Chris, a lawyer, took a step back, focusing on dancing while the sisters took over the direction of Arete.
The dancers range from their mid-teens to early twenties and are, as required, members of the parish. Irene and Lea have been directing all of them from a young age. In fact, they taught most of them how to dance.
The sisters pride themselves on learning dances from different regions of Greece: Macedonia, Thrace, Crete.
The Cypriot suite of dances was added to their repertoire as a means of expressing appreciation to the Cypriot dean of the Annunciation Cathedral, Reverend Stephen Kyriacou, who hails from Karavas and who incidentally is Irene's father-in-law (Chris's father). "As a tribute to him and his culture, we wanted to do something to honour him since he's been so wonderful to us here and welcoming, so we decided to do something different and learn Cypriot dances, " said Irene in an interview to The Cyprus Weekly.
It was not a trivial undertaking as local resources were scarce: nobody in the Bay Area could teach them or provide substantial information. A couple of months' research on the internet and several contacts with a Cyprus government official provided them with the background they needed to get underway.
Rehearsals began in October 2004, with sole teacher a video tape of the 1989 performance at Colossi of a Limassol group, which, they were told, had the best style. It was a difficult process - watch, practice, rewind the tape, follow the steps, copy the hand movements - that lasted about five months.
The costumes were donated to the church by the government of Cyprus. Nicos Theophanous "was instrumental" in arranging this, says a grateful Irene. "Him and his wife and his entire family were so supportive."
Finally, last February, the sisters were ready to take Arete's Cypriot dances to the annual Greek Orthodox Folk Dance Festival, a four-day dance extravaganza serving primarily the parishes of the Western Diocese but open to groups from as far away as Canada. Arete was no stranger to the festival having been a regular participant since 1998 and having won several awards.
More than 100 groups participated in this year's festival. And although Arete did not win any awards for these particular dances, they did bring tears to the eyes of many Cypriots who watched them.
The applause on Sunday indicated that the church audience was equally stirred, and not only, I suspect, by the remarkable proficiency and grace of the dancers. I, for one, as a Cypriot, felt deeply moved and honoured. In their attempt to pay tribute to one individual and his culture, these Greek-American dancers were honouring Cyprus.
DANCE TROUPE: The members of Arete with (from left to right), the Honorary Consul of Cyprus and his wife, Nicos and Sotira Theophanous; the Cyprus Ambassador, Euripides Evriviades; Bishop Anthimos of Olympos; the Consul General of Greece, Dimitris Tsouloupas; Ted Laliotis, President of the Hellenic Federation of Northern California; and Rev. Stephen Kyriacou and his wife, Presvytera Aliki Kyriacou.
IMPORTANT VISITOR: The Cyprus Ambassador with Irene & Chris Kyriacou and their son.