Australia has been the latest stop for Gianni Megalakakis, who has devoted his life to seeing traditional Cretan dance recognised on a global scale.
The Greek island of Crete was home to one of the world’s most sophisticated ancient civilisations. On the other side of the world in Australia, the traditional dances from Crete are still proving intoxicating for many. Mary Vasilakis is a Cretan dancer who lives in Melbourne.
“The buzz that you get when you’re performing Cretan dancing – it’s an out of body experience you feel,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s anything that you can put in words.
“It takes you on a trip, it takes you on a journey, it just takes you to a different place when you’re performing it.
“Feeling the goose bumps and all of that, I haven’t got that with any other type of dancing that I’ve done – you get completely lost in it.”
Life passion
For Ms Vasilakis and for hundreds of other Australians, Cretan dancing is a life passion, particularly for those who are descendants of Cretan migrants, like Melbourne’s Yianni Rerakis.
“Getting on stage and dancing, hearing live music, that’s when I’m at my happiest basically, on stage, with the crowd, everyone going crazy and you get up and do what you love and people appreciate that,” Mr Rerakis said.
“I still enjoy dancing at home in my room by myself as much as I enjoy dancing on stage.
“It’s just the sense of trying to feel as close as I physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally can to being in Crete itself.
“I wish I could live there but seeing as we’re so far, the next best thing to do is try and imitate the life and live the life here as much as we can.”
Turbulent history
Crete is Greece’s largest island, which lies in the middle of three continents – Europe, Africa and Asia.
For centuries it was the centre of ancient trade routes. This saw it become ruled by various invaders for centuries and develop its own distinctive culture shaped by war and tyranny.
Cretan music and dances reflect the island’s turbulent history.
Cretans claim their dances stem from the ancient Minoan civilisation.
They say Cretan dance has an enduring power that continues to move people and is so valuable it deserves to be protected and passed down. But maintaining the culture in Australia, thousands of kilometres away from Crete, has been difficult.
Saving culture
Mr Megalakakis says his quest is preventing Cretan dancing from fading away.
“Writer Nikos Kazantzakis, who was a humanist, stated never say ‘don’t worry about it, how can I save the world’ instead you should say ‘I must save the world’,” Mr Megalakakis said.
“I am not for one moment saying that I will single-handedly save Cretan culture, but I am saying that I too must contribute to saving this culture, along with everyone else who concerns themselves with dance, music, anthropology or Crete in general.
“When I teach overseas, I often feel that I am the bearer of Crete within me and that I have a responsibility to pass on all that I know, have recorded and moves me, to the latter generations.”
The quest has become the 36-year-old’s love and life and motivates everything he is doing.
Complete happiness
Like the island’s mountainous terrain, Cretan dances are rough, wild and diverse.
There are dances of war and of love. Most are made up of small intricate steps mostly danced in a group, holding hands in a semi circle.
But unlike dancing from many other parts of Greece, there is a strong emphasis on the individual.
The leader is expected to improvise and make up their own steps to express their mood – happiness, anger, pain, freedom.
Men often leap in the air, slapping their legs.
The musicians sing couplets or ‘mantinades’ to reflect what the dancers are doing and the dancers respond accordingly.
Together with his twin brother Giorgo, Gianni Megalakakis has devoted his life to inspiring others to appreciate Cretan dance and recognise its value.
“For me complete happiness lies not only in teaching dance steps but seeing from a pupil’s eyes at that moment, that I have been able to transport them to Crete and that they have felt that connection,” Gianni Megalakakis said.
“This is my main challenge, not only to teach the steps of some rudimentary Cretan dances but also to foster a wider and substantive engagement with the island of Crete itself.”
Gianni Megalakakis also held classes in Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide and it is hard not to get swept up in his passion.
God of dancing
Yianni Rerakis followed the teacher’s career from a distance for years before meeting him in Melbourne.
“He, in my eyes, is the God of dancing,” he said.
“People laugh when I say that but the passion and the love for dancing that you can see through his dancing is why I have so much respect for the man and why I love watching him.”
The experience is a far cry from times gone by.
Tony Tsourdalakis remembers learning to dance in Melbourne decades ago.
“We used music and in the kitchen and in the garage whatever we’d find, we’d sit there and practice,” he said.
“Broke enough tiles in my time, doing what we call in Greek ‘talimia’ off the kitchen bench.
“Mum and Dad were yelling and screaming, chasing me around the house.”
Back then, relatives and new migrants become dance teachers and passed on whatever they knew.
“We never had this opportunity, we got taught from our parents, there were no experts at the time when our parents migrated to this country,” Mr Tsourdalakis said.
“It feels quite rewarding to have someone of Gianni’s calibre here to be able to convey his passion to the kids.”
Enthralling children
Not only is Gianni Megalakakis able to grab adults, he can also enthrall children, including eight-year-old Antonio Arvanitagis and 10-year-old Yianni Babousis in Brisbane.
“He’s a Greek boy and his name’s Gianni, he’s awesome, he dances very fast and smacks his feet so hard, he hugs me, he pats me on the head,” Antonio Arvanitagis said.
“We’ve been doing Greek dancing, and we have been enjoying it and we hope we do it again some time, it seems interesting, I feel very proud, because a lot of people are looking at us saying wow you’re doing so good,” Yianni Babousis said.
Ms Vasilakis also teaches kids in her spare time in Melbourne and says there is something in Gianni Megalakakis’ dancing and presence that just cuts through with children.
“He’s done something to these kids which no words can explain,” she said.
“You’ve got second and third generation kids that would just come and go “it’s just dancing” and talking to him for the first five minutes he transforms the way you feel about it.
“Watching him dance, makes you go – ‘I want that, I want to do that, I want to feel what he’s showing me’.
“From the first minute he starts talking to you about dance, he’s got you.”
Inspiring dancers
It is a passion that Gianni Megalakakis hopes to convey to many more people too.
“I try to make people understand not only the vast history of Cretan dance but also its technical dimensions,” he said.
“For this reason, just as the flamenco and tango have spread worldwide, I too want to inspire other to appreciate Cretan dance on a global scale.
“It would make me proud to know that we have 10 to 20 professional Cretan dance teachers acting throughout the world in a few years’ time, because Cretan culture deserves this.”
The teacher’s visit to Australia has left its mark, inspiring dancers like Ms Vasilakis to reach higher.
“It’s a lot harder that we’re so far away – Gianni made a good comment to us, you either want things to be easy or you’re someone that can work through the hardest of situations, you choose,” she said.
“If anything that made us go ‘bring on the hard stuff, we want the hardest of stuff’.”
It has had a powerful impact on Mr Rerakis too.
“I will see dancing differently now, dancing in total now,” he said.
“It has opened another door to dancing that I didn’t know or I didn’t know enough of – I hope it shows, I think it will.”
What is success?
For Gianni Megalakakis, his quest continues.
“I consider myself fortunate to have been able to meet people in Australia who can understand and share my passion,” he said.
“Who have also been inspired by the richness of Crete, shared a vision to advance Cretan dance, recognised the value and developed a greater respect for maintaining it.
“What is success? It could be anything. In my youth I resolved that I would understand this concept when I grew older.
“I am still traversing a path and not in any position to assess this in respect of my work with Cretan dance, I am still traversing a path.”
* ABC journalist Maria Hatzakis is an Australian of Cretan descent, and is a keen dancer who has herself studied with Gianni and Giorgo Megalakakis in Athens. She and other members of the local Cretan community helped organise and arrange Gianni’s trip to Australia. This article was published with permission from ABC. You can read the full story at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-24/greek-choreographer-continues-cret…