After a lengthy time off due to COVID, the Darwin GleNTi Festival is back on this weekend Saturday June 10 and Sunday June 11.
Presented by The Greek Orthodox Community of North Australia, GleNTi is set to be a celebration of all things Greek in Darwin.
From music, dance, food, drinks to all things culturally Greek, at Bicentennial Park on the Esplanade from 10am to midnight.
This year the festival will be themed after the Dodecanese, with dancers, performances’ and much more from the region.
Neos Kosmos spoke with the president of the Greek Orthodox Community of NA, Nicholas Poniris, about what they have in store for the Greek community of Darwin and incoming visitors.
“For the very first time, we’re expanding our guest list apart from the band, which is a made-up band of all different artists that can perform on a large scale,” he said.
“So, we’ve created a GleNTi band, and every year we have different people participate in it, and they produce the best sound that we can get on the day. Our singers this year, we have Adonis Lyras from Melbourne, Maria Maroulis out of Melbourne, as well she’ll be joining us…and we got some special guests.”
The band members are the same that international Greek artists would use as support when in Australia.
In recent years they supported Greek singer Dimitris Basis when he performed at the festival, according to Poniris.
“It gives you some credibility in terms of what we do. We don’t take any shortcuts with the musicians that we bring up and we have our preferred people that we know are quite capable.”
“It costs us more to bring them from different parts of the country, but the outcome is what the people experience and they love it.”
It is not just a weekend of festivities however, as GleNTi Week kicked off last Saturday.
People had the opportunity for a little taste of the festival, with a cooking demonstration of dolmades and keftedes.
Poniris says it was well received by the local community, who cannot wait for the real deal this weekend.
Other events include the Tuesday June 6 GleNTi Cup match between Darwin Olympic and Hellenic Athletic.
Two matches, both women and men, for bragging rights over the other Greek based club in the NorZone Premier League.
A cup and medals will be awarded to the winner, both on the night and at the festival over the weekend.
The week of events began seven years ago says Poniris, which began with movies and the Greek Film Festival starting up through GleNTi.
GleNTi has a significant impact on the local economy too, with people coming from interstate too.
Guests average 10 days in the northern city and are invited to the events free of charge, including the soccer match at Darwin Football Stadium.
The Greek community of Darwin, unlike the community’s in Melbourne and Sydney, is still quite traditional and developing.
“Our Greek community here is still at a growing stage. If I can take you back to the analogy of Melbourne and Sydney, back in the seventies, in terms of the closeness of the family, the friendship and how everybody’s got their doors are open. That’s how Darwin is today,” Poniris said.
“The generational change hasn’t come through yet. The general population is second-generation Greek, as opposed to third and fourth, which is what the other cities are.
“So, we’re in that initial phase of Greek community, so everything is still true, everything is still authentic. The genuine want to help is still there. There is some animosity, but nothing on the scale that you would see in terms of anywhere else.
“But having said that, we’re still at a nurturing age in terms of our population and we love everything that’s traditional. And the festival itself, through my guidance in the last 15 years and seven more so as the president has been to take it back to our grassroots, which we are good at and forget trying to play the theatrical game, so to speak. And everybody loves it, and that’s what is unique about it.”
