For over thirty years, Festival Hellenika in Adelaide has celebrated and promoted Hellenic arts and culture, becoming a vital part of Australia’s creative industry.
The annual arts festival supports community cultural events, artistic endeavours, and provides opportunities for local artists to express their Hellenic connections.
Adoni Fotopoulos has been involved with the festival since 1998 and is now serving his second term as president of the festival committee.
“We’re an umbrella organisation and we basically collect, curate and create content that informs us as Hellenes and also Philhellenes about Hellenism in its Australian context and its Australian manifestations,” said Fotopoulos, to Neos Kosmos.
After noticing “an absence” of people like his parents – who immigrated from Greece in the 1960s – at South Australia’s main arts centre, Fotopoulos and the team decided to act.
“We took the idea to Adelaide Festival Centre about 23 years ago, to bring Greek content to their programming because there wasn’t really anything there for the Greek community to go to and go for,” he said.
This initiative not only succeeded but also paved the way for other minority communities to be included in the centre’s programming.
Many non-Greeks also go to the festival.
Recently, the festival’s committee supported and promoted an exhibition (HORTA-CULTURE) organised by the Organisation of Hellene and Hellene-Cypriot Women of Australia (OEEGA).The event focused on Greeks and their love of foraged greens that are central to our diet and kept people alive in times of war and occupation. Fotopoulos said the event was well attended by non-Greeks, including Asians.
The organisation has had several notable achievements over the years, including their largest and most well-attended festival to date this year, featuring sold-out events.
“Our concerts are the jewel in the crown of our programme – they are the biggest event in our festival,” said Fotopoulos.
Another highlight was their collaboration with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 2004, featuring the first-ever program of contemporary Greek composers during Greece’s Summer Olympics year.
Fotopoulos said there has even been “great academic engagement,” citing a recent event by Professor Han Baltussen, that focused on women philosophers from antiquity, who are often overlooked in historical discourse.
Building on South Australia’s good reputation for wineries, he said they also organised an event at a local winery, to showcase Greek varietals and explore the role of wine in Greek culture, with insights from food historian, Professor Rachel Ankeny.
Fotopoulos said there has been a “quantum leap of interest” among younger generations in exploring their identities, in an attempt to “understanding themselves better.”
“It’s some sort of interesting sociological phenomenon that we haven’t quite understood yet, but something’s working and lots of people are interested in coming along.”
He explained this interest ranges from “light” activities like cooking to more “difficult” topics like discussing historical tragedies such as the Chios massacre covered by historian Yanni Cartledge.
Fotopoulos also noted the role of social media in sparking interest in other cultures.
“A lot of people are sharing and following things that are interesting to them…there’s a lot of cross pollination with other cultures.”
The apolitical, non-religious, and non-profit organisation depends heavily on volunteers, “but there are challenges that come with it.”
“When you’re dealing with people’s free time and free will…You have to balance their passion with how much energy and how much personal resource they have.”
He said most of their money comes from local sponsorships, as well as some government and local council grants.
Fotopoulos said the organisation has co-promoted Hellenic themed events with many main stream organisations such as the Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival, WOMADelaide, South Australia’s History Festival, and at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Goodbye, Lindita, a nonverbal theatre performance created by Athens-based director Mario Banushi, also premiered in Australia at the Adelaide Festival earlier this year, after its critically acclaimed debut in the National Theatre of Greece.
“We feel like we are caretakers of a culture…. There are now three or four generations of us here, and every one of those generations has its own unique expression. And so, we just want to evolve along with that.”
“We want to keep promoting what Hellenism is looking at for the next generation, so we’re forward looking all the time as well as taking care of the present while honouring the past.
