Abstract
Many members of the diaspora and contemporary philhellenes travel every year to Greece and other countries in order to participate in the so-called “Greek dance seminars.” This form of “dance tourism” focusing on the Greek dances could be seen as a subcategory of the cultural tourism, which seems to have started its development on an informal basis since the late 1970s and early 1980s in Greece and abroad. Members of the second or third generation of the Greek diaspora have established cultural synergies with foreigners interested in Greece and both participated in the first “dance seminars” in Greece developing a new form of contemporary philhellenism. Their purpose was to teach the Greek dances and familiarize foreigners with the living dancing practices in the feasts in the Greek villages thus getting a deeper view of the intangible heritage of Greece through an experiential approach. These mobilities have created transnational networks and online dance communities sharing practices, memories and values without geographical limitations. This paper presents a part of my research regarding this phenomenon and focuses on the influence of Greek dance. To illustrate this, I present the case of one of my collocutors focusing on how his relationship with the Greek dance community and the ‘IkariaDance Project’ (a dance tourism project on the island of Ikaria) has contributed to his activity in promoting Greek folk culture in Belgium and furthermore to his identity building and personal growth.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2022 Special Focus—At the Crossroads of Paradigms: Considering Heterodoxy in the Social Sciences
KEYWORDS
Dance, Greece, Diaspora
