Program:

Thursday, May 9, 2024
Polymenakion Cultural Centre, 30 Thorncliffe Park Drive, Toronto, ON.

7-9pm From Press to Preservation: Building the HHF Greek Canadian Archives at York University
* An Event to Commemorate Mr. Michael Mouratidis’ Landmark Donation

Friday, May 10, 2024
McLaughlin Senior Common Room, 140 McLaughlin College, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON.

9-10:30am Music, Diaspora, and Identity
* Convened by Alexandra Mourgou

In this panel, the musical geographies of the Greek diasporic identities from the late 19th until the late 20th century will be investigated. Participants will discuss how musical identities are conceptualized and enacted in different spatial and temporal contexts, from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and Europe to the United States and Canada. The objective is to trace the hyperlocal and/or transatlantic embodied mobilities and networks, that shaped the perception of Greekness through music. In this session, academics and artists will share their insights on music, diaspora, and identity through different approaches based on archival, ethnographic, and creative research. The conference will offer artists, academics, and other Greek Canadians a platform to share fresh insights into what it has meant to be Greek Canadian historically and what it means today.

Pathé’s Greek Recordings before the First World War
Panagiota Anagnostou, University of Ioannina

Rembetiko in the New Homeland
Dimitris Mystakidis, University of Ioannina

Musical Geographies, Places of Resistance, and the Greek Canadian Experience in Toronto During the 1970s
Alexandra Mourgou, York University

#winning: White Ethnicity and Greek Folk Dance Competitions
Panayotis League, Florida State University

10:30-11am COFFEE BREAK

11am-1pm Greek Dance and Diasporic Identities: Performativity, Tradition and Pedagogies of ‘Greekness’
* Convened and Moderated by Effrosyni Rantou

This panel is a round table discussion on Greek Dancing and Greek diasporic identities. We invite the opinions, experiences and observations of researchers, practitioners and community members with special emphasis on those of dance teachers and dancers/members of Greek dance groups. The goal is to bring together different perspectives on crucial concepts that shape and form Greek Identity(ies) such as tradition, culture, authenticity and performativity by critically discussing and analyzing how those are conceived, experienced, taught, performed and embodied in the context of the Greek Dance.

The Greek Dance groups along with the Greek School have a strong generational dimension. In the interviews with Greeks who migrated to Canada in the 50s, 60s, and 70s those two emerge as the “pillars of Greekness”; It is where first generation of Greeks in Canada, now, grandparents and parents rely their hopes and aspirations for their offsprings’ immersion in the Greek Identity. However, many argue that the Greek School and the learning and practicing of Greek language is losing popularity amongst the younger generations of Greek Canadians while Greek Dance provides an accessible, easier-to-follow collective language. In this sense, Greek Dance is perhaps the last resort/opportunity to participate, practice and be connected to certain aspects of the Greek Identity as shared amongst the Greeks in Canada but also the Greeks in Greece.  When the younger generations of Greek Canadians started to get more disconnected with the language as they were integrating faster in Canadian society, Greek Schools changed the way Greek language was taught. The Greek language transitioned from being taught as a first language to a foreign/ second language and the curriculum was adapted to the Greek Canadian reality.

Is something similar happening with the Greek Dance as well? What sort of adaptations, even reinventions have been happening from the first generation of Greeks in Canada onwards and, if, so, what are the contributing factors?


Dance and Politics
Mimina Pateraki, Dance Teacher and Social Scientist

Preserving Heritage: Greek Dance’s Cultural Impact in Halifax
Yanni Karmas, University of Ottawa

Discussants: Nancy Athan-Mylonas and members of the following Greek dance groups: Paradosi Hellenic Dance Company, Levendia-X Hellenic Folklore Association, Panmessinian Association of Toronto, Cretans’ Association of Toronto “Knossos,” Brother Pontion Toronto “Panagia Soumela,” and Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church Dance Program.

1-2:30pm LUNCH

2:30-4pm “The Greeks in Canada: A Digital Public History” (Roundtable Discussion)
* Moderated by Vasilis (Bill) Molos

Searching for Greeks: The Quest for Ethnic Identification and the Many Greek Diasporas
Athanasios (Sakis) Gekas, York University

Documenting Greek-Owned Businesses in Toronto:  The Greek Canadian Business Histories Project
Alexander Balasis, York University

The Evolution of the Greek Community in Toronto: Navigating Identity
Angelo Laskaris, York University

“From the Mouth to the Lens”: One Picture, A Thousand Lives.
Effrosyni Rantou, York University

Remediating the Past: Film, Community Archives, and the Cypriot Canadian Diaspora
Theo Xenophontos, York University

Abstracts

#winning: White Ethnicity and Greek Folk Dance Competitions
Panayiotis League, Florida State University

This presentation concerns the remarkable resurgence of traditional Greek music and dance among young adult members of the Greek American and Canadian 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- and Canadian- 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.


Musical Geographies, Places of Resistance, and the Greek Canadian Experience in Toronto During the 1970s
Alexandra Mourgou, York University

This paper attempts to explore the multiple interrelations between space and music to achieve a socio-spatial interpretation of the transnational diasporic musical cultures in Toronto. On an empirical level, it focuses on the music places of the ‘Greektown on the Danforth’ during the 1970s to point out the emerging cultural, social, and political (non-politicized) identities, by connecting the urban space with the musical performances related to the Greek diaspora and by depicting musical geographies of the Greek Canadian experience. On a theoretical level, music, culture, identity, diaspora, community, and space are perceived through the socio-spatial processes occurring within the case study, elaborating on innovative approaches linking space with music. This consideration draws from a transdisciplinary view of space, based on the theoretical framework of cultural geography. On a methodological level, a hybrid approach that draws from critical and cultural geography, oral history, anthropology, and ethnomusicology is proposed, combining research techniques from those disciplines.


Rembetiko in the New Homeland
Dimitris Mystakidis, University of Ioannina

This presentation focuses mainly on Greek “musical” immigration to America. There is a brief historical review of the reasons why Greek record production flourished in the first decades of the twentieth century and the ways that Greek immigrant musicians operated in the very hostile social environment for them. Reference is made to the reasons that led to the formation of a particular idiomatic language, the themes of the songs but also to the particular case of the creation of a new way of performing the guitar that remained until recently only in America. This way, which I chose to revive but also to intervene by correcting some imperfections in order to develop the technique.


Pathé’s Greek Recordings before the First World War
Panagiota Anagnostou, University of Ioannina

The presentation focuses on the French Pathé and namely its phonograph sector activities and products of Greek-speaking recordings before the First World War. Through archival documents conserved at the Jerome Seydoux-Pathé Foundation in Paris and at the National Library of France (BNF) and rare objects safeguarded by collectors, it unveils a large network of collaborations expanding from Paris to Tbilisi and from Moscow to Cairo: engineers/travellers exploring the world in search of musical commodities; local merchants promoting new technologies; melodies and records circulating in a broad area. The history of the talking machine is revisited, and fluid cultural identities are put into light, inviting us to reconsider the success of sound recordings and the existence of multiple mobilities at the end of the era of Empires.


Dance and Politics
Mimina Pateraki, Dance Teacher and Social Scientist

Dance orchestrates the passions and dedication of countless people. It creates and expresses identities through their performances. Beyond entertainment, people also share celebration, while at the same time they articulate national identities and national gender body norms. eek antiquity and its. Therefore, dance is mutually connected with body politics and national identity.

The productive movement of the body is the vehicle to enter these worlds, and it allows us to think, to understand the social and political relations that bodies unfold through their performances. Drawing upon Cowan, author of the first ethnographic study that examined body politics in Greece through dance, I underline and agree that in a society where most people dance, to dance “is much more than knowing the steps, it involves both social knowledge and social power” (Cowan 1990:xii).

Why does the cinematic Zorba move us when we hear him sixty years after its first release? Why do athletes celebrate success while dancing to his beat? Why do crowds of fans cheer at the sound of it? Zorba’s cinematic dance highlights that certain performances are culturally significant at critical moments (Pateraki 2017) and have the power to move the world and cultivate relationships that speak to the heart for many years (Sutton and Wogan 2009), cause re-signifiers of the past in the present (Knight 2012).

Having already focused on the importance of dance in Greek society and its participation in shaping national identity within the context of cinema (Pateraki 2017), I have underlined the emotional power of dance in Greek society and its decisive role in shaping the sense of common belonging (Anderson 1997) as well as its mass acceptance (Eriksen 2010). As the dance ferments socially and becomes culturally significant material, the “endearing”, the “ours”, and the “unforgettable” are transformed into one marker of embodied historicity, which sometimes follows irreconcilable paths (Pateraki 2014). However, it becomes the residue that is not filtered, but at critical moments penetrates the filters of social memory and brings together different – however important – time periods (Knight 2012).

Social recognition through familiar, culturally significant materials – national (Eriksen 2010), seems to be a constant challenge through a series of identity indicators which is always in relation to internal and external socio-political conditions (Macdonald 1997). Zorba’s cinematic dance is chosen to celebrate Greek victory and opens a new path for discussion regarding the possibility that dance would stir up social relations.


Preserving Heritage: Greek Dance’s Cultural Impact in Halifax
Yanni Karmas, University of Ottawa

The Romiosyni Dance Group (RDG) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has been a cornerstone of the city’s Greek community since the mid-1980s. Over its history, the RDG has offered members of the Greek community in Halifax a leisure activity-centered approach to learning a variety of Greek dances from different regions of Greece. Along with teaching dance, the RDG provides an opportunity for its members to preserve elements of Greek culture through dance. In this presentation, I will be providing findings from my master’s thesis research where the perceptions of Greek dance teachers were examined regarding the phenomenon of Greek dance in relation to ethnic identity, cultural preservation, and multiculturalism.


Searching for Greeks: The Quest for Ethnic Identification and the Many Greek Diasporas
Athanasios (Sakis) Gekas, York University

The paper will discuss the methodological and conceptual challenges involved in the writing of Greek migration history as synchronic and diachronic in relation to events in Greece and Toronto. The study, part of the SSHRC-funded digital public history project “Greeks in Canada”, contributes to the historiography on migration, ethnicity and homeland politics. The paper reflects critically on the methodological approaches in the field of transnational history by looking at the Balkan Wars and World War I that explain the anti-Greek riots of 1918 in Toronto, the Greek War Relief Fund of1941-1944, and the arrival of the first refugee children of the Greek civil war in Canada in the early 1950s, all examples of transnational networks that connected the two countries and the migrant Greek communities with their country of settlement. The process of nation-building in Greece paralleled the formation of national identities in places where Greeks settled, and the paper addresses ways in which historians can go beyond the methodological nationalism that often defines the history of Greek migration and diaspora.


Documenting Greek-Owned Businesses in Toronto: The Greek Canadian Business Histories Project
Alexander Balasis, York University

The “Greek Businesses in Toronto” project documents Greek-owned businesses in the city from the 1910s to the 1970s. Through archival research and oral history, it compiles a large dataset to create an interactive map showcasing business locations, owners, and industries. The project highlights the diverse economic contributions of the Greek community and the preliminary findings reveal scattered business distribution across Toronto, indicating widespread entrepreneurship. By employing GIS technology and community involvement, the project aims to offer a comprehensive platform for exploring Toronto’s economic history and the Greek diaspora’s impact, enriching our understanding of Toronto’s cultural heritage and its urban development.


“From the Mouth to the Lens”: One Picture, A Thousand Lives.
Effrosyni Rantou, York University

The interviews are progressing and new issues and challenges arise. In response to this, ‘we’ as researchers, are invited to adapt, redirect and rethink our conceptual tools and our methodology. This presentation will mostly reflect on some of those difficulties and challenges that are related to generational issues (racism, the dilemma of repatriation, the mobility and networks generated by matchmaking practices and marriages). Furthermore, this presentation will elaborate on trauma caused by loss and longing as an analytical category through which to explore further the ties of the first generation of Greeks to Canada and their connection to homeland. Finally, methodological challenges will be addressed as well as different ways of conducting interviews so they can adapt to the needs of the interviewees and help them navigate their narratives.


Remediating the Past: Film, Community Archives, and the Cypriot Canadian Diaspora
Theo Xenophontos, York University

This presentation will address the realities of archiving the filmic history of the Cypriot Canadian diaspora. Working within the larger framework of the Hellenic Heritage Foundation Greek Canadian Archives, my mandate is complicated by the fact that the Cypriot wing contains testimonials from both Greek and Turkish Cypriot Canadians.

The fiftieth anniversary of the tragic events of 1974 has led Cypriots around the world to use this moment as a time for reflection. Thus, this audiovisual media archive, which contains personally recorded testimonials with members of the community serves as a resource that helps the Cypriot Canadian diaspora tell more nuanced stories that leads to a rethinking of the Cyprus issue. While both scholars and the general public tend to only understand Cyprus through the ethnic divide, my interviews demonstrate that history is always more complicated given that members of these racial groups are themselves divided in terms of political affiliation, class, sexual orientation, religion, and level of devotion to that religion.

By cultivating an inclusive archive that seeks to break myopic preconceptions, my project aims to go beyond 1974 in order to show the richness and diversity of the Cypriot Canadian experience.