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| Diana
Demetrulias –Grant Administrator |
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Dr. Diana Demetrulias is Vice Provost for Academic
Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at California
State University, Stanislaus. She is past-President of the Greek Folk Dancers Support
Group, has served as a director for young children, and
danced with Greek folk dance groups in Illinois.
Diana
has been the author, principal investigator, and grant
administrator of many funded grants from the state and
federal government, including those from the National
Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of
Education. She
ensures compliance with the post-award requirements of
the California Arts Council and oversees the fiscal and
logistical elements of the projects.
Dr.
Demetrulias is an active researcher.
She has 38 published refereed journal articles,
three monographs, a book chapter, six book reviews,
three software reviews, three literary publications, and
three editorships. She currently serves as the project
director for a three-year grant funded by the California
Arts Council related to the preservation and performance
of traditional Greek folk dance and author of two oral
history articles about the Greek-American community in
the central valley of California and the Annunciation
Greek Orthodox Church – slated for a 2004 publication
date in the Journal of the McHenry Museum and Historical
Society.
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| Dena
Stamos – Artistic and Executive Director |
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Dena
Stamos has had several formal roles – Emeritus
Artistic and Executive Director of the Modesto Greek
Dance Group, as well as Board of Trustees member,
Symposiums Manager, and Costume Judge for the Western
United States Region of the Greek Folk Dance and Choral
Festival.
Dena
Stamos has 30 years of outstanding achievement in Greek
folk dance, costume, and music. Dena performed her first
public performance at the age of seven and was awarded
the Award of Excellence by the American Hellenic
Educational Association in Chicago.
Since this early start, Dena has been recognized
nationally for her spectacular artistry in the creation,
production, presentation, and preservation of Greek folk
dance and costume. Her
deep love of traditional folk arts and her quest for
perfection in the performing arts has led her to conduct
extensive research in Greece and to keep alive these
ancestral traditions in the beautiful Central Valley of
California.
For
lifetime achievement, Dena was awarded the prestigious
1994 Humanitarian Award of the Greek Folk Dance and
Choral Festival, an honor given to only one person in
the western region of the United States who exemplifies
extraordinary achievement and love in working with
children through folk dance.
Dena is also the recipient of the 2002 Lifetime
Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the
arts from the Stanislaus Arts Council.
Over
50 years ago, Dena was 12 years old when her Greek
immigrant parents (Spiro Kachi of Metsovo, Epirus
in Northern Greece and Katina Kokinakis of Arhanes on
the island of Crete) brought her to Modesto.
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| The
Reverend Father Jon Magoulias |
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The Reverend Father Jon Magoulias received his
bachelor’s degree from Hellenic College in 1974 and a
Master of Divinity from the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox
School of Theology in 1977. Since 1977, he has served as an ordained priest of the Greek
Orthodox Church in parishes in Denver and Chicago. Currently, Fr. Magoulias is the parish priest of the
Annunciation Church, Modesto, California, having served
in this capacity since 1986.
In addition, Fr. Magoulias has served in various
capacities within the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of
America, was the first Christian Orthodox chaplain to
the Chicago Police Department, and a member of the Board
of Trustees of Hellenic College. He is credited with and widely respected for leading the
Modesto Greek Folk Dancers to realize the quality of
artistic performance, preservation of traditional Greek
folk dance, dedication to community service, and
commitment to youth ministry.
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Dance,
Costume, and Music Artists
Essential for achieving this goal of preservation at the highest
artistic level is to conduct ethnographic research to
authenticate costume design and construction, dance execution,
and instrumental and choral music as integral elements of dance.
Preservation of Greek folk dance as a performing art is
made difficult as modern technological methods were not
available in the Byzantine age to capture Hellenic dance for
study and replication. Descriptions of dance in written prose are helpful but
insufficient for understanding fully the richness of the folk
dance. It is also
difficult because in Greece, traditional folk dance, costume,
and instruments, and song are threatened as Western clothing
fashions and pop music penetrate the small villages and regions
outside of Athens.
As such, the Modesto Greek Folk Dancers have benefited from the
teachings of master artists, musicians, and scholars from
Greece, the United States of America, and Canada.
The
following are examples of artists and musicians
(instrumental and choral) in Greek folk dance,
costume, and music from the United States, Canada, and
Greece.
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| Mary Coros -
Cretan staging and style |
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Dr. Mary Coros is an expert in Greek
Dance with a specialty in staging and style of Crete
dances. Her
knowledge is gained from her experiences as a performing
artist that began when she danced Syrtos from Crete.
She has impressive educational credentials – BA
and MA in dance from the University of California, Los
Angeles and Ph.D. in Cultural Dance from the University
of Toronto.
As
a result of her cutting-edge dissertation entitled,
"From Dance Into Language," she became a
recognized scholar of ethnic dance.
Among her published credits are books and
articles in such international publications as Oli
Mazi, KPHTH,
Journal of Dance Ethnology, and Dance
Research for the International Council for
Traditional Music Study Group on Ethnochoreology.
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| Nikos
Savvides - Pontian dances and music |
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Nikos Savvides is a native of Kavala, Macedonia where
his parents settled after leaving Pontos.
As a young boy, he learned Pontian dances and
folklore. In
Athens, he danced in professional theatre and was
invited by Dora Stratou to join the National Ensemble of
Greece. He
has performed in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
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| The
late Vilma Matchette - costume design, costume
construction, and dress folklore |
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Vilma Matchette conducted research in folk costume for
the Blanche Payne Collection of Eastern European
costumes and textiles.
She is the author of World Colors, Dolls, and
Dress, a vetted work on antique dolls in authentic
ethnic costume. Vilma conducted research on late 19th and early 20th century
folk dress as a guest of the prestigious Peloponnesian
Folklore Foundation in Nauplion, Greece.
She served for 16 years as a costume judge for
the Greek Folk Dance and Choral Festival.
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| Louise
Bilman - Thracian music and choral presentation |
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Louise Bilman is a trained musician and professional
accompanist, originally from Canada.
She is a psychotherapist in private practice who
also teaches academic courses at UCLA on Greek dance and
ethnomusicology. She
conducts ethnographic research in Greece with specialty
in North Western Epirus, Thracian-Bulgarian border, and
Thracian-Turkish border.
Currently, she is conducting research in the
Dodecaense Islands.
Louise's study includes not only dance and music,
but also social dance as a representation of community
values. She
studies the songs of shepherds and sponge fishermen of
small villages, rather than performance group.
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| Joseph
Kalyanides Graziosi - dance and music |
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Joseph Kalyanides Graziosi graduated from Brandeis
University and has done extensive research in Greek
dances of Northern Greece.
He has published field research on Greek dance
both in Greece and among the Greek immigrant communities
in America. He
was director of the Greek Music tour sponsored by the
National Endowment for the Arts.
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| Mary
Vouras - music |
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Mary Vouras lived in Greece for 23 years studying folk
music and dance and teaches Modern Greek Studies at
Boston University and Harvard University.
She danced with the Dora Stratou Dance Troupe in
the Ancient Theatre of Piraeus.
With Simon Karas, an eminent authority on Greek
folk and Byzantine music, she recorded regional music
with technologically-advanced art equipment.
The result is 25 records, 4 CDs, and books
released by the Society for the Dissemination of
National Music. Mary
has catalogued the Notopoulos collection of music made
in Greece in the early 1950s with the purpose to ensure
survival of the oral tradition of epic poetry and song.
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