(scroll down for ↓ENGLISH↓)
Ο Πολιτιστικός και Λαογραφικός
Σύλλογος Σκοπέλου
διοργανώνει το
5ο Φεστιβάλ
ΜΕΡΕΣ ΡΕΜΠΕΤΙΚΟΥ
στη ΣΚΟΠΕΛΟ
11 έως 15 Ιουλίου 2023
ΕΙΣΟΔΟΣ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΗ
ΜΟΥΣΙΚΕΣ ΣΥΝΑΥΛΙΕΣ
11 έως 14 Ιουλίου 2023
κάτω από την Παναγίτσα του Πύργου
στο Παλιό Λιμάνι
Τρίτη 11 Ιουλίου 2023
- 20:30-21:30
Γιώργος Ξηντάρης, Αντώνης Ξηντάρης, Θοδωρής Ξηντάρης, Γιώργος Αναγνώστου - 21:30-22:00
Προβολή βίντεο-αφιέρωμα στον Παύλο Βασιλείου - 22:00-23:00
Αντώνης Αινίτης, Εβελίνα Αγγέλου, Δημήτρης Κουκουλιτάκης
Τετάρτη 12 Ιουλίου 2023
- 20:30-21:30
«Ρεμπέτικα της κιθάρας» | Σπύρος Δελέγκος - 21:30-23:00
«Ρεμπέτικα με κιθάρα» | Κατερίνα Τσιρίδου, Νίκος Πρωτόπαππας, Αντώνης Ξηντάρης
Πέμπτη 13 Ιουλίου 2023
- 20:30-21:30
Παρουσίαση του βιβλίου του Θωμά Κοροβίνη «Μπέμπης»,
παίζουν οι: Βαγγέλης Τρίγκας, Κώστας Καλαφάτης, Αριστοτέλης Αντωνίου - 21:30-23:00
Γιώργος Παπασολωμόντος, Αριστοτέλης Αντωνίου, Μαρίνος Γεωργίου
Παρασκευή 14 Ιουλίου 2023
- 20:30-21:30
Σκοπελίτες μουσικοί: Στέλιος Παχής, Γιάννης Ξηρογιάννης, Δημήτρης Λεμονής, Κωστής Ε. Λεμονής - 21:30-22:00
Σκοπελίτικα νιάτα: Δημήτρης Γαλατσάνος, Λευτέρης Σκλάβος, Απόστολος Θλιβερός, Γεράσιμος Θλιβερός, Βασίλης Γρυπιώτης, Γιάννης Αστεριάδης, Βλουτής Αστεριάδης, Ρήγας Σπύρου - 22:00-23:00
Κυριάκος Γκουβέντας, Βαγγέλης Κοχύλης, Παναγιώτης Αστεριάδης, Κώστας Καλαφάτης
ΔΙΕΘΝΕΣ ΣΥΝΕΔΡΙΟ για τη
«ΔΗΜΟΦΙΛΗ ΜΟΥΣΙΚΗ»
στην Ελλάδα
14 και 15 Ιουλίου 2023
στο Δημοτικό Κτίριο ΞΕΝΙΑ
Φέτος το φεστιβάλ «Μέρες Ρεμπέτικου στη Σκόπελο» κάνει ακόμα ένα βήμα προς την θεωρητική μελέτη και αναζήτηση κοινωνικών φαινομένων, όπως της λαϊκής μουσικής και την δημιουργία πολιτιστικών ταυτοτήτων, αγκαλιάζοντας και προτείνοντας ένα διεθνές συνέδριο το οποίο θα διεξαχθεί κατά την διάρκεια του Φεστιβάλ.
Στο Διεθνές Συνέδριο για τη Δημοφιλή Μουσική στην Ελλάδα συμμετέχουν Έλληνες και Αμερικανοί επιστήμονες που παρουσιάζουν καινοτόμες έρευνες για το ελληνικό δημοφιλές τραγούδι, υπό την ευρεία έννοια του όρου. Οι ανακοινώσεις καλύπτουν όλες τις εκδοχές του ελληνικού δημοφιλούς τραγουδιού, όπως το ρεμπέτικο, το λαϊκό, το ραπ και όχι μόνο, με στόχο να δημιουργηθεί ένα πεδίο διαλόγου σχετικά με τη δημοφιλή μουσική ως μία ζωτικής σημασίας πηγή γνώσης για την κατασκευή της πολιτισμικής ταυτότητας και ως εργαλείο για την αποκάλυψη κοινωνικών αξιών και την ώθηση σε αλλαγή. Το συνέδριο ολοκληρώνεται με τη «Στρογγυλή Τράπεζα “Παύλος Βασιλείου”», στην οποία μια ομάδα προσκεκλημένων μελετητών συζητά σημαντικά ζητήματα που άπτονται της έρευνας για την ελληνική δημοφιλή μουσική.
ΠΡΟΓΡΑΜΜΑ ΣΥΝΕΔΡΙΟΥ
Παρασκευή 14 Ιουλίου 2023
1η συνεδρία
Αφηγήσεις, αισθητικές και σεξουαλικότητες
Συντονίστρια: Πηνελόπη Παπαηλία
- 10:00-10:30
Γυναίκες τραγουδίστριες στην αγορά της μουσικής εργασίας [*ΕΝ]
Σίσσυ (Ασπασία) Θεοδοσίου – Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων και Ελένη Καλλιμοπούλου – Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών - 10:30-11:00
Η ΤΡΑΠ αισθητική και η διφορούμενη θέση των γυναικών ακροατριών της ελληνικής ΤΡΑΠ
Μιχάλης Παναγιωτόπουλος – Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας - 11:00-11:30
«Πες στον μπάτσο bye»: Ενσωματώσεις του «ΛΑΪΚΟΥ» και του ΧΙΠ ΧΟΠ στο πλαίσιο της ελληνικής κουήρ μουσικής
Ναταλία Κουτσούγερα – Πάντειο Πανεπιστήμιο
–Διάλειμμα 30′–
2η συνεδρία
Υποκειμενικότητες, αμφισημίες και αντιστάσεις
Συντονιστής: Νίκος Πουλάκης
- 12:00-12:30
Δημοφιλής μουσική, συλλογική μνήμη και αντίσταση [*ΕΝ]
Άννα Παπαέτη – Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών - 12:30-13:00
Μια «άλλη» δημοφιλής χριστιανική μουσική: Ρεπερτόρια και θεσιακότητες Ελλήνων νιγηριανικής καταγωγής στην Ελλάδα του 21ου αιώνα
Ευανθία Πατσιαούρα – University of Manchester - 13:00-13:30
Poli_Ploki: Γλωσσική εναλλαγή και υποκειμενικότητα στα τραγούδια της Ελένης Φουρέιρα
Μαριλένα Γάτσιου – Πάντειο Πανεπιστήμιο
–Μεσημεριανό διάλειμμα–
3η συνεδρία
Κοσμοπολιτισμός, κρίση και εργασία
Συντονίστρια: Βασιλική Γιακουμάκη
- 17:00-17:30
Κοινωνικά δίκτυα, αυτοπροβολή και κοσμοπολιτισμός στην ηλεκτρονική μουσική σκηνή της Αθήνας [*ΕΝ]
Λέανδρος Κυριακόπουλος – Κέντρο Έρευνας για τις Ανθρωπιστικές Επιστήμες, Ίδρυμα Κρατικών Υποτροφιών - 17:30-18:00
«Low-budget» κοσμοπολιτισμός: Η ΤΖΑΖ σκηνή στην Αθήνα της οικονομικής κρίσης
Γεωργία Βάββα – Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας - 18:00-18:30
Αστικές και αθέατες μουσικές ιστορίες: Τα αυτοσχέδια μουσικά στούντιο της Θεσσαλονίκης [*ΕΝ]
Αλεξάνδρα Καραμούτσιου – Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης
Σάββατο 15 Ιουλίου 2023
4η συνεδρία
Μύθοι ελληνικότητας
Συντονίστρια: Άννα Παπαέτη
- 10:00-10:30
Επαναφέροντας το μαύρο στη Μεσόγειο: Σκέψεις περί αποικιακότητας και λευκής υπεροχής με αφορμή τα τραμπέτικα του Νέγρου του Μοριά
Πηνελόπη Παπαηλία – Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας - 10:30-11:00
Νέγρος του Μοριά: Το αφροελληνικό ΧΙΠ ΧΟΠ ως μετα-μεταναστευτικός αντιεθνικισμός [*ΕΝ]
Γιόνα Σταμάτη – University of Illinois Springfield - 11:00-11:30
Λευκή εθνότητα και η ελληνοαμερικανική αναβίωση της παράδοσης στον 21ο αιώνα [*ΕΝ]
Παναγιώτης Λιγκ – Florida State University
–Διάλειμμα 30’–
5η συνεδρία
Μουσικές ταυτότητες και ετερότητες
Συντονιστής: Παναγιώτης Λιγκ
- 12:00-12:30
Ρευστά πλαίσια, ανάμεικτες πρακτικές, αμφίσημες ταυτότητες: Εξερευνώντας τη δημοφιλή αστική μουσική στην κοσμοπολίτικη Σμύρνη των αρχών του 20ού αιώνα
Νίκος Πουλάκης και Σπύρος Πρατίλας – Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών - 12:30-13:00
Η εκδίκηση της γυφτιάς: Σχετικά με τις χρήσεις και την κατανάλωση των ελληνικών λαϊκών μουσικών ειδών «ανατολίτικο» και «δυτικό» [*ΕΝ]
Βασιλική Γιακουμάκη – Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλίας - 13:00-13:30
Το ΡΕΜΠΕΤΙΚΟ και η λογική του παράδοξου: Περί της πολλαπλής σταθερότητας των ελληνοτουρκικών σχέσεων
Ντάνιελ Κόγκλιν – Ανεξάρτητος ερευνητής - 13:30-14:00
Απο-ιδεολογικοποιώντας το ΡΕΜΠΕΤΙΚΟ με αναλυτικό και ερμηνευτικό εργαλείο την έννοια της ετεροτοπίας
Σπύρος Θ. Δελέγκος – Ακαδημία Sibelius του Πανεπιστημίου Τεχνών του Ελσίνκι
–Μεσημεριανό διάλειμμα–
- 17:00-18:30
Στρογγυλή Τράπεζα «Πάυλος Βασιλείου»
Σίσσυ (Ασπασία) Θεοδοσίου – Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων
Ελένη Καλλιμοπούλου – Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Αλέξανδρος Μπαλτζής – Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης
Νικόλαος Μποζίνης – Ανεξάρτητος ερευνητής
Άννα Παπαέτη – Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών
Γιόνα Σταμάτη – University of Illinois Springfield
Οι ομιλίες με την ένδειξη [*ΕΝ] θα πραγματοποιηθούν στα Αγγλικά
Οργανωτική επιτροπή Συνεδρίου:
Βασιλική Γιακουμάκη, Ελένη Καλλιμοπούλου, Νίκος Πουλάκης, Σίσσυ (Ασπασία) Θεοδοσίου, Πηνελόπη Παπαηλία, Γιόνα Σταμάτη
ΥΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΑΙΓΙΔΑ ΤΟΥ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΤΙΚΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΛΑΟΓΡΑΦΙΚΟΥ ΣΥΛΛΟΓΟΥ ΣΚΟΠΕΛΟΥ
ΣΕ ΣΥΝΔΙΟΡΓΑΝΩΣΗ ΜΕ ΤΟ ΤΜΗΜΑ ΜΟΥΣΙΚΩΝ ΣΠΟΥΔΩΝ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΝΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΙΛΛΙΝΟΙΣ ΣΠΡΙΝΓΚΦΙΛΝΤ
Έκθεση Λαϊκών Μουσικών Οργάνων
Κατά τη διάρκεια του Φεστιβάλ θα λειτουργεί έκθεση λαϊκών μουσικών οργάνων από τους οργανοποιούς Αναστάσιο Κατσιφή, Ανδρέα Δέλλιο, Αθανάσιο Τσακμάκα, Γιάννη Τσουλογιάννη, Ιωάννη Καρβούνη και Κωνσταντίνο Σακκά, στο Δημοτικό Καφενείο Σκοπέλου. Ώρες λειτουργίας: 11:00-13:00 και 18:00-21:00.
ΣΕΜΙΝΑΡΙΑ
11 έως 14 Ιουλίου 2023
- Μπουζουκιού, με τον Βαγγέλη Τρίγκα
στον αύλιο χώρο του Αρχοντικού «Βακράτσα», 17:30-20:30 - Φωνής στο Ρεμπέτικο, με την Κατερίνα Τσιρίδου
στον αύλιο χώρο της «Επισκοπής», 17:30-20:30 - Μακάμια – Λαϊκοί Δρόμοι και Εναρμόνιση, με τον Σπύρο Δελέγκο
στον Πολιτιστικό Σύλλογο, 17:30-20:30
11 έως 15 Ιουλίου 2023
- Βιολιού στο Σμυρναίικο και το Ρεμπέτικο, με τον Κυριάκο Γκουβέντα
11:00-14:00 στον Πολιτιστικό Σύλλογο και 17:30-20:30 στην αυλή του ξενοδοχείου «Κυρ Σώτος»
Πληροφορίες και δηλώσεις συμμετοχής: κ. Κώστας Καλαφάτης | 6972304048
5ο φεστιβάλ «ΜΕΡΕΣ ΡΕΜΠΕΤΙΚΟΥ στη ΣΚΟΠΕΛΟ» 2023
Διοργάνωση: Πολιτιστικός και Λαογραφικός Σύλλογος Σκοπέλου
Συνδιοργάνωση: Περιφέρεια Θεσσαλίας – Δήμος Σκοπέλου
Υπό την αιγίδα του Υπουργείου Πολιτισμού και Αθλητισμού
↓↓↓ENGLISH↓↓↓
The Cultural and Folklore Association of Skopelos
organizes the
5th music Festival
“Days of Rebetiko in Skopelos”
11 to 15 July 2023
FREE ENTRANCE
LIVE CONCERTS
11 to 14 July 2023
under Panagitsa of Pyrgos
in the old Harbor
Tuesday July 11 2023
- 20:30-21:30
Giorgos Xintaris, Antonis Xintaris, Thodoris Xintaris, Giorgos Anagnostou - 21:30-22:00
Screening of a video tribute to Pavlos Vassiliou - 22:00-23:00
Antonis Ainitis, Evelina Angelou, Dimitris Koukoulitakis
Wednesday July 12 2023
- 20:30-21:30
“Rebetika of the guitar” | Spyros Delegos - 21:30-23:00
“Rebetika with guitar” | Katerina Tsiridou, Nikos Protopappas, Antonis Xintaris
Thursday July 13 2023
- 20:30-21:30
Presentation of Thomas Korovini’s book “Bebis”,
musicians playing: Vangelis Trigas, Kostas Kalafatis, Aristotelis Antoniou - 21:30-23:00
Giorgos Papasolomontos, Aristotelis Antoniou, Marinos Georgiou
Friday July 14 2023
- 20:30-21:30
Skopelitian musicians: Stelios Pahis, Yiannis Xirogiannis, Dimitris Lemonis, Kostis Lemonis - 21:30-22:00
Skopelitian youth: Dimitris Galatsanos, Lefteris Sklavos, Apostolos Thliveros, Gerasimos Thliveros, Vassilis Grypiotis, Yannis Asteriadis, Vloutis Asteriadis, Rigas Spyrou - 22:00-23:00
Kyriakos Gouvendas, Vangelis Kochylis, Panagiotis Asteriadis, Costas Kalafatis
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE on “POPULAR MUSIC” in Greece
14 and 15 July 2023
in the XENIA Municipal Building
This year the festival “DAYS of REBETIKO in SKOPELOS” takes another step towards the theoretical study and research of social phenomena, such as folk music and the creation of cultural identities, embracing and proposing an international conference which will be held during the Festival.
SCHEDULE
Friday July 14 2023
Panel 1
Narratives, Aesthetics, and Sexualities
Moderator: Penelope Papailias
- 10:00-10:30
Female Singing Careers in the Music Labour Market [*ΕΝ]
Sissie (Aspasia) Theodosiou – University of Ioannina and Eleni Kallimopoulou – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens - 10:30-11:00
Greek Trap Aesthetics and the Paradox of Female Listeners
Michalis Panagiotopoulos – University of Thessaly - 11:00-11:30
“Tell the Cop Goodbye”: Embodiments of ‘laïko’ and Hip Hop in Greek Queer Music Contexts
Natalia Koutsougera – Panteion University
–30′ break–
Panel 2
Subjectivities, Ambiguities, and Resistance
Moderator: Nick Poulakis
- 12:00-12:30
Popular Music, Collective Memory, and Resistance [*ΕΝ]
Anna Papaeti – National Hellenic Research Foundation - 12:30-13:00
An “Other’s” Popular Christian Music? Repertoires and Positionalities of Greek Youth of Nigerian Background in 21st-Century Greece
Evanthia Patsiaoura – University of Manchester - 13:00-13:30
Poli_ploki: Language Switching and Subjectivity in Eleni Foureira’s Songs
Marilena Gatsiou – Panteion University
–Midday break–
Panel 3
Cosmopolitanism, Crisis, and Labour
Moderator: Vassiliki Yiakoumaki
- 17:00-17:30
Self-Promotion and Cosmopolitan Belonging in Austerity Athens [*ΕΝ]
Leandros Kyriakopoulos – Research Center for the Humanities - 17:30-18:00
“Low-budget” Cosmopolitanism: Live Jazz in Recession Athens
Georgia Vavva – University of Thessaly - 18:00-18:30
Urban and Untold Music Histories: The Makeshift Music Studios of Thessaloniki [*ΕΝ]
Alexandra Karamoutsiou – Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Saturday 15 July 2023
Panel 4
Myths of Greekness
Moderator: Anna Papaeti
- 10:00-10:30
Putting the Black Back into the Mediterranean: Coloniality and Race in the Trampetika of Negros tou Moria
Penelope Papailias – University of Thessaly - 10:30-11:00
Negros tou Moria: Afro-Greek Hip Hop as Postmigrant Counternationalism [*ΕΝ]
Yona Stamatis – University of Illinois Springfield - 11:00-11:30
White Ethnicity and the 21st Century Greek American Folk Revival [*ΕΝ]
Panayotis League – Florida State University
–30’ break–
Panel 5
Music Identities and Alterities
Moderator: Panayotis League
- 12:00-12:30
Fluid Contexts, Blended Practices, Ambivalent Identities: Exploring Urban Popular Music in Cosmopolitan Smyrna During the Early 20th Century
Nick Poulakis and Spyros Pratilas – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens - 12:30-13:00
I Ekdikisi tis Gyftias (Η Εκδίκηση της Γυφτιάς): On Uses and Consumption of Greek Popular Music Genres “East” and “West” [*ΕΝ]
Vassiliki Yiakoumaki – University of Thessaly - 13:00-13:30
Rebetiko and the Logic of Paradox: On the Multistability of Greek-Turkish Relations
Daniel Koglin – Independent researcher - 13:30-14:00
De-ideologizing Rebetiko Through the Concept of Heterotopia as an Analytical and Interpretive Tool
Spiros Delegos – Sibelius Academy Uniarts Helsinki
–Midday break–
- 17:00-18:30
“Pavlos Vasileiou” Roundtable
Sissie (Aspasia) Theodosiou – University of Ioannina
Eleni Kallimopoulou – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Alexandros Baltzis – Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Nikolaos Bozinis – Independent Scholar
Anna Papaeti – National Hellenic Research Foundation
Yona Stamatis – University of Illinois Springfield
Conference proceedings marked with [*ΕΝ] will take place in English
Organizing Committee:
Vassiliki Yiakoumaki, Eleni Kallimopoulou, Nick Poulakis, Sissie (Aspasia) Theodosiou, Penelope Papailias, Yona Stamatis
Conference co-organizer:
DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC STUDIES – UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, SPRINGFIELD
PAPER ABSTRACTS
Female Singing Careers in the Music Labour Market
Sissie (Aspasia) Theodosiou – University of Ioannina
Eleni Kallimopoulou – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Despite the general belief that an adequate understanding of the musical phenomenon presupposes, among other things, an understanding of the work conditions of those engaged in music making, the distinction between music as work and music as art is not often explored. At the same time, the common theme of music work is rarely included in the otherwise captivating discursive field, both academic and public, of music practice. The present paper joins the recent turn to the study of creative and artistic labour, acknowledging that in the context of post-fordist modes of production, the artist becomes an emblematic figure of broader transformations taking place in the work-field. The paper focuses on aspects of the working lives of female singers who are active in the fields of entehno (art-song), and laïko-dimotiko (urban-folk) music, and work in a variety of music clubs (magazia, kendra), aiming to highlight the ways in which they themselves narrate and give meaning to their work experience. We approach the wider field of artistic/creative work by looking at the ways in which “immaterial” and “affective labour” (Hardt & Negri, Lazaratto) is embedded in processes of learning and performing music, in order to broaden our understanding of the multiple ways in which music acquires value. More specific questions explored include the following: What are the implications of acknowledging music as work for the widespread notion that music is an aesthetic practice that is closely intertwined with the production of affect/emotion, entertainment and fun? How are gender and emotion involved in the production of various forms of music work and musical subjectivities? How is precarity intertwined with racialized and gendered artistic labour? Our discussion will draw upon semi-structured interviews conducted with female singers face-to-face and online, in the context of a broader ethnographic research project.
Greek Trap Αesthetics and the Paradox of Female Listeners
Michalis Panagiotopoulos – University of Thessaly
For my undergraduate thesis, I had the chance to conduct ethnographical research on women listeners of Greek trap music. I investigated the ‘paradoxical’ relationship between women who support feminist ideologies and trap music. Through my examination of both individual and public practices of listening, I analyzed ‘tensions’ that arise around a genre of music that is considered highly controversial in Greek society. Many different issues emerged from this research. Firstly, women with whom I spoke told me that they feared their relationship with Greek trap music might threaten their status and position within certain groups of people, given that trap music is generally perceived as sexist and low-quality music. Furthermore, as trap lyrics are potentially threatening and insulting to my discussants due to their sexist references, they told me that they felt it necessary to consume this music in safe places and with people they can rely on, especially other women. Within this framework, the position of the “male listener” was judged negatively by them for consuming this “sexist” music. Finally, I examined the female identification with the male gaze of trap performers and the expression of lesbian desire through the perspective of male-dominated trap music. My analysis is based on a series of interviews and fieldnotes from parties I attended as part of my fieldwork research conducted in the fall of 2022.
“Tell the cop goodbye”: Embodiments of ‘laïko’ and Ηip Ηop in Greek Queer Μusic Contexts
Natalia Koutsougera – Panteion University
The concept of the popular in Greek mainstream contexts and mediaesthetics resonates with the notion of ‘laïko’. Very often this notion takes the form of a music idiom deriving from the genre of ‘laïki’ music with its meanings and aesthetics stemming from the orient (e.g. rebetiko). On the other hand, hip hop in Greece with its most pivotal element that is rap or emceeing is increasingly becoming one of the most emblematic popular genres in post-crisis Greece embraced mainly by young people. Astonishingly, Greek hip hop music is often compared to rebetiko by Greek hip hop musicians and publics while commercial rap (e.g. trap) is performed in ‘laïko’ venues such as ellinadika night clubs and pistes. What is more, in both genres’ environments traditional masculinities and femininities are privileged and promoted while sexist, homophobic and heteronormative narratives circulate and reproduce heteropatriarchic norms. This presentation analyses the embodiments of ‘laïko’ and rap in Greece by queer performers belonging in the Greek LGBTQ+ scene who use them in frameworks of alternative music and club entertainment to deconstruct and subvert existing patriarchic and national narratives as well as gender conforming binaries. It designates the emergent possibilities of an alternative modality of the “popular” and its power for queering and carnivalesque which can be used as a strong political tool of visual cultures against state violence, police brutality, homophobia, femmephobia and transphobia.
Popular Music, Collective Memory, and Resistance
Anna Papaeti – National Hellenic Research Foundation
The paper explores the way the singing subject emerges as the political subject par excellence in the early post-dictatorship period in Greece. It investigates the ways in which popular music songs became the vehicles of the demand for democracy during the early transition to democracy. This alliance of popular music with the political has shaped, as I argue, collective memory about singing resistance during Junta. It also created a saturation that led to a move away from (political) popular songs to other kinds of popular music in the post dictatorship period. The paper focuses on the documentary The Songs of Fire by Nikos Koundouros (1975). Shot immediately after the fall of the military dictatorship, the film exhumes the elation of three popular music concerts and demonstrations, capturing the enthusiasm for the return to democracy expressed through singing. The paper shows how the film was crucial in establishing a narrative of resistance in collective memory that was centred on popular music and singing, investigating the ways in which this narrative, performed collectively and publicly, also betrays a latent reaction to a brutal regime fought by the few. It argues that collective singing seems to merge in memory with the ‘singing resistance’ performed individually and in secret during the dictatorship. Extended back in time, this sonic narrative registers an unconscious desire to repress the fact that large parts of society had remained silent during the regime’s seven-year rule.
An “Other’s” Popular Christian Music? Repertoires and Positionalities of Greek Youth of Nigerian Background in 21st-Century Greece
Evanthia Patsiaoura – University of Manchester
How fixed are the boundaries of ‘Greek popular music’ today? In addressing this question, both the designations ‘Greek’ and ‘popular music’ are at stake. My discussion challenges the fixity of both ‘Greekness’ and ‘popular music’, by focusing on Greek youth of Nigerian or other Black African backgrounds, frequently identifying as ‘Afro-Greeks’, and their engagement with popular religious music-making. It does so by drawing on fieldwork among communities of Nigerian Pentecostal background, which have been expanding on Greek soil since the late 1990s. In such communities, youth born/raised in Greece is exposed to rich repertoires of Nigerian gospel music, praise-worship music and/or contemporary Christian music. These repertoires epitomise a global booming of new Christianities and musics, which, since the 1960s has been subject to continuous human and digital mobilities between the global south and north. How do such repertoires become meaningful within the spatiotemporal boundaries of 21st century Greece, to what extent do they evoke ‘Greekness’, and what kinds of audiences do they reach? I explore such questions through discourse and audio-visual analysis, as well as reflections on my positionings among such communities in Greece and their juxtaposition with similar communities in other parts of the world, including the UK, Brazil and Nigeria. Crucially, I problematise designations attached to both the music and populations in question to account for ethics of ‘subject’ constitution in ethnographic writing.
Poli_ploki: Language Switching and Subjectivity in Eleni Foureira’s Songs
Marilena Gatsiou – Panteion University
In this presentation I wish to highlight the relationships between language and subjectivity in pop music, focusing on the example of Eleni Foureira. Foureira (born Entela Fureraj in Fier, Albania) is a Greek pop singer, dancer and fashion designer, active in the Balkans (Panik Records, 2018). She became popular in Greece and Cyprus with her album “Anemos Agapis” in 2014 and achieved the highest position for Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2018, placing 2nd (Panik Records, 2018). Eleni Foureira’s music could fall under the category of laiko, pop and dance-pop, with oriental influences (Panik Records, 2018). Ιn 2018, she represented Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest with “Fuego”, a song with a Spanish title and a Beyonce-like choreography (Holden, 2018). In 2019, she released the album “Gypsy Woman”, with songs in English, Spanish and a mix of the two languages (Panik Records, 2018). This essay will examine the continuous language shifts the artist utilizes, in relation to her own artistic representation and identity, the Greek context and feminist discourses.
Self-Promotion and Cosmopolitan Belonging in Austerity Athens
Leandros Kyriakopoulos – Research Center for the Humanities
Athens has witnessed a surge of Electronic Dance Music parties in the last decade of the debt crisis and austerity measures. This (re)ascendance of EDM has been co-introduced with the corresponding increase of social media’s use. The paper addresses the ways with which the rise of EDM in Athens is associated with the modalities of visibility and self-presentation inaugurated by social networking. The fact that Greece and specifically Athens has been saddled with the burdens of austerity is central to this question. Within an everyday life of financial deprivation dominated by the neoliberal ideals of individual success, local musicians invest in music experimentation and production longing for an ‘authentic’ lifestyle and acknowledgment for their labor in the public sphere. To what extent does the desire for innovation and lifestyle experimentation, which characterize the EDM consumption culture, intertwine with the social media’s mechanics of self-promotion and recognizability? To what extent does bohemian lifestyle become a shared vision for a common experience of austerity mediated (and commemorated) by techno soundscapes? The paper ponders on how EDM party culture accrues value in conditions of neoliberal austerity wherein ideals of success fail to provide a sense of authenticity and cosmopolitan belonging.
“Low-budget” Cosmopolitanism: Live Jazz in Recession Athens
Georgia Vavva – University of Thessaly
This paper maps the transformations related to the work practices of professional jazz musicians and jazz-music venue owners during the recession, and the ways in which these are spatialized in the area of Kerameikos in Athens, Greece. The areas of Gkazi and Kerameikos, have been primarily associated with Greek popular musics, with the two big avenues traversing the area – namely Piraeus and Iera Odos – hosting a number of big clubs. However, during the recession the area of Kerameikos developed into a ‘jazz neighborhood’ due to the establishment of a number of small jazz venues that employed local jazz musicians, triggering an impressive rise of small-scale musical performances. I argue that the finance-scape disruption that occurred after 2010, led to the prioritization of a globally-informed locality, as local musicians provided a much cheaper alternative to their international counterparts, while invoking the cosmopolitan imaginary related to the Anglo-American music traditions that was nurtured during the previous decades of economic growth. In Kerameikos this process has been further assisted by the decelerating rhythms of gentrification, where these work practices have brought together two concepts pertaining seemingly to contradicting social imaginaries, that of jazz and kafeneio, adding further to the emergent puzzling urban ‘crisis-scape’.
Urban and Untold Music Histories: The Makeshift Music Studios of Thessaloniki
Alexandra Karamoutsiou – Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
For over forty years, musicians of different backgrounds, meet at D.I.Y. music spaces (makeshift music studios) in Thessaloniki, “outside” of the recorded, official, local histories of music life. This narrative starts from the mid-1970s and the first post-Junta (dictatorship) years and extends to the first years of the 1990s, the years of the 1980s form the core of the stories. During this decade, the MMSs (makeshift music studios) consolidated their presence in the city of Thessaloniki, both through their proliferation and through the systematisation of their makeshift techniques. The reasons for the initiation of the musical practice of the MMSs are explored in the political and cultural conditions of the 1980s, “another” -Metapolitefsi (Avgeridis, Gazi, Kornetis 2015, 18), and in the Greek appropriation of the D.I.Y (do it yourself) ethos. The MMSs emerge as the center of a vibrant D.I.Y music network consisted of self-managed concerts, festivals, independent record labels, self-releases, pirate, community radio and the fanzine press. Through those stories MMSs emerge as vital spaces where musical processes and forms of sociality come together and interact. Each MMS could be interpreted as a space where it is possible for a ‘utopia’ (ideal future vision) (Foucault 1998) to meet the ‘heterotopia’ (temporal realisation of utopia) (Foucault 1998, Stavridis 2006). Overall, for the city of Thessaloniki, the MMSs are valued as “urban musical paths” (Finnegan 2007), ready to be re-carved by future musical generations. A combination of methodological tools originating from the realms of oral history, ethnography and archival research was used to research the MMSs.
Putting the Black Back into the Mediterranean: Coloniality and Race in the Trampetika of Negros tou Moria
Penelope Papailias – University of Thessaly
Centered on the 2021 music video “Ego eimai Sourtoukis” (I am a Tramp) by Greek-Ghanaian rapper Negros tou Moria, this presentation considers the potential of contemporary Greek popular music and visual culture to expose the hidden centrality of coloniality and white supremacy to myths of Greek nation and modernity. Performed just days after the Bicentennial of the Greek Revolution, in front of the iconic statue of Theodoros Koloktronis, Greece’s most famous hero and the rapper’s namesake, the video can be understood as claiming voice and visibility in the public sphere for a migrant and subaltern subject: a gesture of self-interpellation into a national narrative oblivious at best, hostile at worst, to the presence of so-called AfroGreeks in contemporary Greek society. I would like to push the analysis further though: to ask how Negros tou Moria’s use of language (“Ottoman” Greek), performative cosplay with national costume, trampetika (“trap” and “rebetika” hybrid, fueled by a fusion of ideas drawn from Elias Petropoulos and Bob Marley) operates as a productive de/facement of Greek history that brings into relief the “whiteface” put on by Greeks from Koloktronis to PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, while calling into question the historic whitening – rather than the inherent whiteness – of the Greek Mediterranean.
Negros tou Moria: Afro-Greek Hip Hop as Postmigrant Counternationalism
Yona Stamatis – University of Illinois, Springfield
Three decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain, debates about migration, integration, and national identity remain salient in Greece. The recent influx of asylum seekers from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq introduced unprecedented levels of ethnic diversity into the social fabric that challenged normative perceptions of belonging in the national community. Music, theatre, and other performing arts have come to the forefront as a means for first and second-generation activists to challenge exclusionary discourse and policies that often leave the newcomer and their descendants perpetually outside of the national community. In this paper, I discuss the music of second-generation Afro-Greek hip-hop artist Negros tou Moria, as a rich counternarrative to hegemonic models of national belonging. Engaging Langhoff’s emergent concept of postmigration (2004), I position Negros’s work as postmigrant counternationalism, the reworking of traditional culture and history into an alternative nationalist discourse that places the newcomer rather than those constructed as indigenous at the center of national identity constructs. A central conclusion is that his creative juxtaposition of Greek folk music and culture with subaltern musical styles like rebetika and reggae creates a space of sonic empowerment that brings to the fore the constructed nature of racial, ethnic, and national identities.
White Ethnicity and the 21st Century Greek American Folk Revival
Panayotis League – Florida State University
This presentation concerns the remarkable resurgence of traditional Greek music and dance among young adult members of the Greek American community in the context of Orthodox parish dance groups both at home and at regional folk-dance festivals and competitions. What I hope to show here is that, for a critical mass of young American-born members of the global diaspora, it is focused, detail-oriented study of and participation in exactingly particular musical practice associated with very specific locales in Greece – more often than not, regions and villages unconnected to these practitioners’ ancestral origins, and instruments that have an explicitly subaltern character in relation to more canonical actors such as the bouzouki and clarinet – that calibrates the emotional, psychological, and aesthetic dimensions of their sense of belonging to a wider diasporic Greek world. I argue that this orientation towards a shared diasporic Greekness that is explicitly predicated upon active involvement in historically marginalized folk traditions in a performative context both presents a challenge to some aspects of the “symbolic ethnicity” paradigm that has dominated studies of expressive culture in the Greek diaspora, and at the same time reinforces some of the facets of “choose-your-own-adventure” white ethnicity that confound attempts to articulate an activist political stance beyond advocating for the preservation of particular traditions. My focus throughout will be on personal experience, and how it intersects with lived ideals of a collectively created sense of belonging to an equally poetic and problematic sense of diasporic Greekness.
Fluid Contexts, Blended Practices, Ambivalent Identities: Exploring Urban Popular Music in Cosmopolitan Smyrna During the Early 20th Century
Nick Poulakis and Spyros Pratilas – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Until its destruction in 1922, Smyrna was a cosmopolitan port of the Eastern Mediterranean, a center of intercultural encounters, economic networking, artistic exchanges, and religious diversity, with a strong Greek element. Based on its rich mosaic of ethnicities, cultures, trends, and ideas that came into contact, the city demonstrated a remarkable commercial and artistic activity which contributed substantially to the social development of the region and shaped what we now perceive as Smyrnaic heritage. Art and light music from the West, Eastern-style amanedes, church hymns, rebetika, local folk songs, Armenian and Jewish musical idioms, European and Oriental dances—all these contributed to the multicultural everyday life of Smyrna, the so-called “Paris of the East”. In this paper, we will examine the contexts, practices, and functions of urban music in Smyrna during the early 20th century. In particular, we will analyze the fluid conditions which formulated Smyrna’s musical mosaic, as well as its performative and popular dimensions in relation to the economic and demographic expansion of the city. By investigating Smyrna’s music venues, ensembles, and recordings, we will try to understand how modern Western styles coexisted with earlier local musical expressions and how these were blended together, although today considered incompatible, thus resulting in the reconceptualization of urban popular music practices of this particular place and period, and the creation of ambivalent ethnomusical identities.
I Ekdikisi tis Gyftias (Η Εκδίκηση της Γυφτιάς): On Uses and Consumption of Greek Popular Music Genres “East”-and-“West”
Vassiliki Yiakoumaki – University of Thessaly
I am exploring (what I view as) processes of exoneration of the laïkó in trajectories of Greek popular music in Eastern Mediterranean/“Middle Eastern” settings (particularly Greece and Israel) at present. Specifically I pursue to understand trajectories of the Greek laïkó genre and sub-genres, from being ethnicity-and-social-class specific, to transcending their underprivileged belongings, and acquiring a certain cultural hegemony in the public spheres of both societies. Either as component of the so-called Mizrahi music culture in the “Middle East,” or as component of the so-called vari laïkó (and/or oriental, and/or kapsoura) in Greece, this sonic universe used to be identified with subaltern, disempowered, underdog, oriental, and orientalized social categories (e.g., Arab-Jewish Israelis, working-class Greeks). It implied, therefore, non-elite cultural capital as well as cultural intimacies of various kinds. By exoneration, I suggest that these laïkó sounds are deployed/re-visited/re-appropriated by different audiences, artists, and consumers at present, thereby transcending ethno-class boundaries, and allowing for new or formerly non-permissible aesthetic and affection gamuts to be displayed. Without losing their original significations, i.e., for the original audiences, these laïkó sub-genres today may become available to other, wider, audiences for confirming distinction. The fact that the social locus of their abjection is becoming a locus of affection, reveals shifts in political sentiment and various power hierarchies in either society, worthy of comparing.
Rebetiko and the Logic of Paradox
Daniel Koglin
An important reason why the Greek popular song genre rebetiko enjoys a constant fan base is its rare ability to both unite and divide. Its references to low life, its association with marginalized subcultures of Greek society, including drug users, prostitutes, and refugees, as well as its incorporation of musical influences from the Ottoman Empire led to the genre being suppressed and even banned at times. This suppression, however, only added to the nonconformist flavour of rebetiko, turning it into a symbol of defiance against the dominant culture and its norms. And its rebellious spirit continues to inspire musicians and audiences, not only in Greece but – since the 1990s – also in Turkey. In my presentation I focus on 21st-century cases of rebetiko serving as a subversive sonic system for strengthening cross-border online communities of dissenters. My main question is why rebetiko maintains this capability, even though there are contemporary genres of both Greek and Turkish popular music that voice political protest and social critique much more outspokenly. To answer this question, we must not only look at specific cases of dissident musicking and examine the accompanying discourse – but we also must take account of the underlying emotional rationality peculiar to rebetiko.
De-ideologizing Rebetiko through the Concept of Heterotopia as an Analytical and Interpretive Tool
Spiros Delegos – Sibelius Academy Uniarts Helsinki
Diverse ideological-cultural narratives have been introduced variously in rebetiko-related studies as analytical and interpretive devices. For instance, the ideologically charged politico-cultural narrative of the East-West dipole has contributed to promoting hegemonically several generalizations and stereotypes without clear musicological meanings in rebetiko discourse. In my study, I attempt to de-ideologize rebetiko in terms of the East-West dualism through an analysis and interpretation of syncretic rebetiko-related phenomena, based on the Foucauldian philosophical concept of heterotopia. I draw upon the theoretical background of historical ethnomusicology and I contextualize the concept of heterotopia within the musico-cultural field as a critical and de-ideologized tool. In this regard, I show that syncretic musical expressions and practices, such as the blending of makam modality and chordal harmony, and the tune Minore manes as a seed of rebetiko development, can be perceived beyond East-West narrative. Therefore, I argue for the deconstruction of the East-West dichotomy in and, by extension, the decolonization of rebetiko by understanding it as a musico-cultural heterotopia.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Alexandros Baltzis is an associate professor in Sociology of the Arts and Mass Communication at the School of Journalism and Mass Media Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a professor-consultant at the Hellenic Open University (MA programme “Cultural Management”). He has taught as a visiting professor at universities abroad and at the Democritus University of Thrace. He is the author of many papers and chapters in three languages and the editor of three publications. He has participated in many international and local scholarly conferences, as well as in many international and local research projects. He is a member of several local and international academic associations and scholarly networks and a reviewer in international scholarly journals. His research and teaching work focuses on the production and consumption of cultural goods and services, on the effects of globalization on the cultural industries, on cultural management and cultural communication (more details at: https://baltzis.webpages.auth.gr/).
Nikos Bozinis was born in Thessaloniki in 1960. He Studied Greek Language, Literature, History and Social Anthropology in the University of Thessaloniki and Cultural Studies in Nottingham Trent University under the supervision of Professor Richard Johnson. He holds a PhD degree in Modern History from the University of Athens and his thesis was edited under the title of Rock Globality and Greek Locality by Nefeli Publishers. He has also published articles on rock culture, Greek popular culture, youth culture, and educational policies. He is currently living in Athens and working as a Senior Executive in Secondary Education.
Spiros Delegos is a doctoral candidate at the Sibelius Academy Uniarts Helsinki, holds a Master’s degree in “Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology” from the University of Athens and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Patras. He has studied Greek traditional and makam music on the lavta at the Municipal Conservatory of Patras, theory of European Classical Music at the Philharmonic Foundation Conservatory of Patras, Ottoman music and classical mandolin privately. Furthermore, he has got an excellent knowledge of the folk guitar and the Greek three- course bouzouki and baglama. As a musician, he has appeared at numerous musical venues, live concerts and festivals and has composed music for theatre. He is a music teacher at the Philharmonic Foundation Conservatory of Patras, the founder and musical director of the “Urban Greek Popular Music Orchestra” (a large ensemble with string, wind instruments, etc.), and has given an array of musical workshops on makam modality and harmonization in rebetiko. As a scholar, he has presented several papers at (ethno)musicology conferences and published articles in Greek and international scientific journals; he currently translates-edits into Greek the scientific collective book “Greek Music in America” (University Press of Mississippi).
Marilena Gatsiou completed her undergraduate studies at the Department of History, Archeology and Social Anthropology of the University of Thessaly in Volos (Greece) and postgraduate studies at the “Gender, Culture and Society” program of the University of the Aegean in Mytilene (Greece). She also holds an MA in Visual Anthropology from Aarhus University, Denmark. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Anthropology of Panteion University (Athens, Greece). In conversation with feminist and queer theory, her thesis focuses on the study of Kosovo’s pop culture and contemporary art and its connection to local politics. Through her research, she intends to examine new possibilities of agency in (political) aesthetics and visual cultures. Her interests include queer theory and politics of desire, as well as visual cultures in and around Balkans and South Eastern Europe.
Eleni Kallimopoulou is Assistant Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (PhD, MMus, SOAS, University of London). She is author of Paradosiaká: Music, Meaning and Identity in Modern Greece (Routledge, 2009), co-author of Learning Culture through City Soundscapes – A Teacher Handbook (University of Macedonia, 2013), and co-editor of Counter-Archives: Rethinking Oral History from Below (Greel Oral History Association, 2021), Music Communities in 21st-century Greece: Sonic Glances in the Field (Pedio, 2020), and Introduction in Ethnomusicology (Asini, 2014). Her research interests span the fields of usical performance and ethnography, Popular music and artistic labour, Nationalism, public folklore and the politics of culture, Oral history, Auditory culture and urban space, Epistemology and methodology of research, Applied ethnomusicology, Critical pedagogy. She is a founding member of the research team sonorCities, and a member of the International Advisory Board of Ethnomusicology Forum.
Alexandra Karamoutsiou is a PhD Candidate of the Music Department of Auth University of Thessaloniki, and she is researching the DIY music activities of the city. During the past years she presented parts of her research work in several conferences, organized by IASPM, KISMIF and Punk Scholars Network.
Daniel Koglin was born in Germany, and studied musicology, psychology and philosophy in Freiburg, Salonica, and Berlin. Since 2000 he has lived in Athens, where he completed a course of study in Byzantine church music, postgraduate studies in linguistics, and doctoral studies in ethnomusicology. In his dissertation he compared the ways in which audiences in present-day Athens and Istanbul perceive the popular song genre rebetiko. He has authored several journal and book articles as well as two monographs on Greek music, one of them being Greek Rebetiko from a Psychocultural Perspective (London: Routledge 2016).
Natalia Koutsougera is an anthropologist and director of ethnographic films working at the intersection of anthropology of dance, visual anthropology, gender, youth, popular and hip hop studies. Her doctoral research focused on the popular (laïkó) night clubbing practices of working-class youth cultures in Athens. Her postdoctoral research revolves around hip hop, urban dance scenes and street femininities. She has produced two ethnographic films on hip hop and street dance styles in Greece entitled “Born to Break” (2011) and “The Girls are here” (2015). She works as Laboratory Teaching Staff in the Department of Social Anthropology at Panteion University, Athens where she teaches the courses “Anthropology of Youth Cultures” and “Anthropology of Dance”. Her forthcoming documentarian venture entitled “Girls Wanna Just Dance” exploring femininities in urban dance styles is about to be accomplished in December 2023.
Leandros Kyriakopoulos is a social anthropologist with an interest in social media, audio-visual technologies, music (rave) cultures and technoaesthetics. He is the author of Representations of the Uncanny: Nomadism and Aesthetics in the Psychedelic Rave (2020, Nissos Publications, in Greek), and editor of the thematic issues, Spaces made of Sound – Times of Technique: Interfaces between Technology, Networks, Music and the Body (Automaton: Journal of Digital Media and Culture 1:2) and Digitality – Aestheticization – Autonomy of Affect (Utopia Journal vol. 133). He is a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Centre for the Humanities (RCH), Athens, Greece; and the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) of Greece. He has lectured in the departments of Social Anthropology at Panteion University, History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, and Culture, and Creative Media and Industries at the University of Thessaly. He is currently a HORIZON 2020-ERC postdoctoral researcher in the Consolidation Grant MUTE, at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, working on the uses of sound technologies in conditions of warfare and torture.
Panayotis (Paddy) League is a musicologist, composer, and performer specializing in the traditional music and oral poetry of Greece, Northeast Brazil, Ireland, and the American South. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology and Director of the Center for Music of the Americas at Florida State University, where he teaches seminars on ethnographic theory and practice, critical approaches to historiography, and public-facing folklore and musicology. His research has appeared in journals such as Ethnomusicology, the Journal of Modern Greek Studies, the Journal of Greek Media and Culture, the Harvard Review of Latin America, and multiple edited collections, and his monograph, Echoes of the Great Catastrophe: Re-Sounding Anatolian Greekness in Diaspora, was recently published by University of Michigan Press. He frequently performs and records traditional Greek and Irish music, Brazilian popular music, and original instrumental rock and musical settings of poetry in various languages. In 2019 he was named a Master Artist by the Florida Folklife Program for his work teaching the traditional music and oral poetry of Kalymnos to youth in his home community of Tarpon Springs, Florida, where his family has worked in the sponge diving industry and public education since the early twentieth century.
Michalis Panagiotopoulos is a graduate of the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly, majoring in Social Anthropology (2023). For his undergraduate thesis, he conducted ethnographic research on female listeners of Greek rap music.
Anna Papaeti is Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator Grant MUTE – Soundscapes of Trauma: Music, Sound, and the Ethics of Witnessing (Horizon 2020, grant agreement no. 101002720) at the Institute of Historical Research at the National Hellenic Research Foundation. She writes about the nexus of sound, violence, and trauma, as well as music and politics. Her research has been supported by the European Commission (FP7, Horizon 2020), DAAD, Onassis Foundation, and the Centre for Research for the Humanities, Athens. She has published widely in edited volumes and scholarly journals and has co-edited two special issues on music and torture. She is also a research-based-art practitioner, working in sound and textual forms.
Penelope Papailias is an associate professor of social anthropology at the University of Thessaly where she directs the Laboratory of Social Anthropology and the Pelion Summer Lab for Cultural Theory and Experimental Humanities. Her ethnographic research concerns the politics of memory and historical culture in Greece, with an emphasis on colonial afterlives and technologies of mediation. She is a founding member of the initiative dëcoloиıze hellάş and associate editor of World Anthropologies for the journal American Anthropologist.
Evanthia Patsiaoura works on the intersections of music, spiritual experience, popular culture and locality, with an ethnographic focus on Nigerian gospel music and African Pentecostal Christianities. Prior to her appointment as Lecturer in Ethnomusicology in the University of Manchester in 2021, Evanthia was awarded a DEL doctoral scholarship and two FAPESP postdoctoral fellowship grants, which allowed her to conduct multi-sited fieldwork in Greece, Brazil, Nigeria, the UK and the social media. Evanthia’s recent and forthcoming publications contribute to discussions of locality and diaspora, religion and popular music and culture, and ethnographic methodology. Her work appears in outlets like Popular Music and Society, The Sage Research Methods Foundations, The Routledge Companion to the Study of Local Musicking, and Mana: Studies in Social Anthropology. Evanthia has taught a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, Ethnography and Fieldwork, while directing Nigerian gospel singing ensembles at Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Manchester, UK, as well as the State University of Campinas, Brazil.
Nick Poulakis is a staff member of the Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology Laboratory at the Department of Music Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where he teaches film music, ethnographic cinema, and applied ethnomusicology. He is also an adjunct instructor in Modern Greek Culture Program of the Hellenic Open University. He has been involved in various research projects and has written several articles and book chapters on ethnomusicological films, video life-stories of migrants, anthropology of film and TV music, media education, and audiovisual literacy. His recent books published in Greek include Musicology and Cinema: Critical Approaches to the Music of Modern Greek Films, Music from Optical Theater and Silent Cinema and World Musics: Soundscapes, Identities, and Practices.
Spyros Pratilas is a PhD candidate in the Department of Music Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He graduated from the same Department with a BA in Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology (2018). He also has a Master’s degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Panteion University of Athens (2021). He holds diplomas in piano and musical composition from the Athens Music Association Conservatory (1999) and he has been working as a music teacher in public education since 2003. His research interests cover the study of musical/cultural collective identity and heritage, and their relation to the social visibility and inclusion of minority, refugee and emigrant groups, as well as the dialogical relationship that distinct popular musics develop while being performed and interacting within the complex ethno/cultural and social/political framework of contemporary Greece.
Yona Stamatis is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology and director of the Music Program at the University of Illinois Springfield. Her research interests include Greek folk and popular song with particular attention to contemporary rebetika practices, diaspora and migration studies, and the intersections of music and democracy theory. Recent publications focus on music as gendered practice, rebetika performance and catharsis, and music as form of political socialization. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Constantine Tsangadas Fellowship for Hellenic Studies. She is the music editor of the journal Ergon: Greek/American and Diaspora Studies. She is an active musician as a violinist and bouzouki player.
Aspasia (Sissie) Theodosiou is a social anthropologist and associate professor at the Department of Music Studies of the University of Ioannina. Her research includes long-time fieldwork among Gypsy/Roma musicians in Epirus (Greek-Albanian border) and more recently research with the Mizrahi and the politics and practices surrounding Greek music in Israel, as well as in the Romaniot Jewish community of Ioannina. Her interests revolve around the anthropology of music, issues related to nationalism and sovereignty, the politics of culture and affect around popular music, artistic labour, cultural racism and legacies of national purity. Her theoretical perspective includes questions related to the pertinence of post-colonial critique for Romani studies, as well as for the understanding of Mizrahi subjectivities in the Israeli state.
Georgia Vavva is an ethnomusicologist with a background in music and anthropology. She holds a BA in Music Studies (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) and an MA in Social Anthropology with Distinction (Queen’s University Belfast). In 2019 she completed her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology in Royal Holloway, University of London, funded by the Crossland Research Scholarship. Her research concerns music and the economic crisis in Greece with a particular focus on the Athenian jazz scene in the post-2010 period. She specializes on music and globalization, the politics of value, urban music cultures and change, and the ethnography of the economic crisis in the Mediterranean. In 2015 she worked as a research assistant for the research project “Western art music at the time of crisis” and carried out fieldwork in “The Music Village” in Ayios Lavrentios, Pelion. The project was funded by the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs under the action “Aristeia II”. She has participated in various workshops and her work has been published at Polyphony and The Greek Review of Social Research. During the academic year 2022-2023 she was a Teaching Fellow at the Department of Culture, Creative Media and Industry – University of Thessaly.
Vassiliki Yiakoumaki teaches social anthropology at the Department of History-Archaeology-Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly (Volos), Greece. Her research interests focus on nationalism, ethnic groups and minorities, multiculturalist politics, Jewish cultures of Greece and Europe, religion and the public sphere, and practices of contemporary religiosity. Her current research field is Israel, i.e., contemporary Israeli society, and Greek-Israeli Jewry. She has conducted research on perceptions of Greek identity in present-day Greek-Israelis, as well as on Greek music in Israel.
Exhibition of Folk Musical Instruments
During the festival there will be an Exhibition of Folk Musical Instruments by the instrument makers Anastasios Katsifis, Andreas Dellios, Athanasios Tsakmakas, Yannis Tsoulogiannis, Ioannis Karvounis and Konstantinos Sakkas, at the Municipal Cafe of Skopelos, from 11:00 to 13:00 and from 18:00 to 21:00
