The thing about cultural festivals is they just get bigger and better each year. Well, that’s the aim at the very least. To improve on the last year, to present more, to give more to the masses so they engage with arts and culture. Twenty-two years ago in Adelaide, Festival Hellenika began as a humble month-long program of events aiming to highlight and celebrate Hellenic arts and culture. In 1992, South Australians flocked to immerse themselves in more than a paniyiri or a glendi; this was a festival filled with a rich tapestry of events. Now, in 2014, Festival Hellenika is set to embark on one of its biggest programs to date.

Stamatiki Kritas has been involved in the festival since 2002, and is now the president of the South Australian Council for the Greek Cultural Month Inc, and is quick to point out one significant factor.

“June is when this year’s program finishes,” she says. But it’s a month long event that kicks off next week – in March.
“Is this like the Greek five minutes thing? Someone says they will be there in five minutes, and they turn up two hours later?” I ask.
“Pretty much,” she says, “We’ve even been asked to run Festival Hellenika the whole year around!”
From March till June this year, Adelaide will be transformed into a sea of Hellenic events care of the festival. But what is the ethos behind the whole event?
“Festival Hellenika is an exciting and diverse arts festival which aims to foster Hellenic links in the arts, celebrating Hellenic culture and encouraging and promoting Greek Australian artists manifestations,” she tells Neos Kosmos.

This is done through music, exhibitions, academic lectures, and visual arts projects. And is open to anyone – from people of Greek descent to Philhellenes – who want to promote Hellenic culture in Australia.

This year, the festival kicks off on March 5 with a musical performance by acclaimed Greek singer Kati Koullias. When asked about other highlights of this year’s festival, Stamatiki points out two other international scholars who will be taking part.

Dr Panayiotis Ioannou, from the University of Crete, will present a lecture on El Greco, as 2014 marks 400 years from the death of the famous Cretan painter, sculptor and architect Doménikos Theotokópoulos – El Greco. He will be looking at El Greco’s successive moves from Crete to Venice, to Rome and to Spain, and how these affected his work.

Dr Alessandro Boria, an Italian scholar from the University of Roma, will be presenting a lecture entitled ‘Music from Ancient Greece’.

“Because we don’t have any actual recordings, he will talk about what scholars think the music in Ancient Greece sounded like,” Stamatiki explains.
But even with all the international recognition through artists and speakers from all over the world and not just Greece, Stamatiki says this festival’s main aim is to promote grassroots level artists – to support and nurture local talent.

“We are really lucky here in South Australia as we have a plethora of Greek musicians who are fantastic, so every year we give them the chance to perform at the Adelaide Festival Centre through the Music Hellenika project,” she says.

This year’s performance will be dedicated to Yiorgos Zambetas. Ten local musicians will be performing with five vocalists born and bred in SA. Music Hellenika is always the stand-out feature of the festival’s program and has provided Stamatiki with some of her favourite memories from her years involved with the festival.

“One of my favourite Musica Hellenika was in 2004 which was dedicated to Manos Hatzidakis. It was beautiful because suddenly the whole of the Adelaide Festival Centre was filled with the music of Manos Hatzidakis,” she remembers. 2003 was also a significant Music Hellenika as they collaborated with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra to perform the work of Mikis Theodarakis who is a significant and renowned composer. Stamatiki remembers that night as being “magical” to all that were lucky enough to attend.

But having said that, she is loath to point out just one event to highlight and says they are all – big and small – like her little babies. She works tirelessly alongside a committee of 13 to put together the program that does get better year after year. From the minute the idea is conceived, to putting it down and delivering the event to executing the whole festival – everyone plays a part in the world of Festival Hellenika.

And as the events get bigger, so do the crowds. Year after year, she’s rewarded with new faces and people from not only the Greek community but those of the wider community taking part.

“Everyone waits patiently each year for our program to come out,” she says of this time of year.

“And what we’ve seen by bringing cultures together, by bringing bilingual events for everyone to enjoy is new audience members from the wider community and we have seen it through their response and their engagement. I think we are succeeding.”
For more information visit www.festivalhellenika.org.au