We Dance Written and Photographed by Leah Michalos
The music started off slow at first, with the men quietly hissing,
their tongues lightly vibrating off their upper teeth. The band,
a bouzouki player and a man with a single hand drum, picked up
speed and volume with each beat. Patrons of the taverna stopped
eating, stopped talking mid-conversation and stared at three other
men making their way to the middle of the dance floor. Turning
to the two-man band behind them the youngest of the men, dressed
in all black: a cut-off button down shirt, tight black pants,
and a long white sash wrapped around his waist, gave the bouzouki
player a nod, yelled, ‘Opa!’ and started to dance.
They danced the tsamiko, a traditional Greek dance. Historically,
it was only danced by men that were scattered in the mountains
of Greece who waged guerrilla warfare against the Turkish forces
during the Greek War of Independence. Men leaping high into the
air was characteristic of this dance during the war, as doing
so portrayed evidence that they were men of bravery, physical
skill and courage. These dancers performed no differently. After
five minutes, the men bowed, and went back to the kitchen, while
the band quieted their tunes again.
We were at O Kokkinos,
a hotel on the island Mykonos. Two of us, Dina and I, had
already been traveling through Europe for a month. We met
up with the other three, Lambrini, Maria and Connie, while
in Athens. Every Friday Kokkinos¹ taverna featured “LIVE!
AUTHENTIC! PROFESSIONAL HELLENIC DANCERS!” It was our
last night on the island before parting and sailing to Chios.
We hadn’t sat down to an ‘expensive’ meal
yet, so we figured we would go to then taverna that night
for dinner before we all went our separate ways.
The two men came out a second time, the music picked up again,
and they started to dance the zembekiko a ‘freestyle’
type of dance. There are no exact steps; you just feel the music
and dance as it moves you. Niko, the younger of the two dancers,
approached our table, put his hand out in front of Lambrini, and
said, with a thick Greek accent, “Dance? You dance wit me?”
She grabbed his hand, tossed her hair back as she looked back
at our table with a coy smirk. She was determined to win him over
that night. On the dance floor, Niko began showing her how to
dance the tsifteteli historically a fertility dance done by women
to lure in the men, but she was one step ahead of him. “You
not know what to do yet”, Niko said to her as they continued
to dance.
“Xero perrisoptero apo sas”. I know more than you,
she said, as she spun around in front of him. Shocked that she
spoke Greek to him he asked, “Ameriki, oxi? Apo pou eisai?”
he asked her, wanting to know where we were from. He thought we
were American. Was he wrong?
“Ameriki”, she replied, grabbing the mandili, the
handkerchief with her right hand that Niko held in his right hand
and leaned back until she could touch her left hand to the ground.
“You’re American?” he asked, in shock.
“Yeah”, Lambrini replied, “Greek-American”.
“Bravo”, he said, looking amazed and proud at the
same time. The man could not believe that we were Americans, descendants
of Greece, who still took part in the customs of our ancestors.
He swung her around, faster and faster. The music picked up speed.
The people watching started to clap. A cook in the back stepped
out from the kitchen and shattered plates on the floor. More flips.
More swinging. His long black curls started to drip with sweat
as hers flung back and around, twisting with every new flip and
turn. In a finale, he lifted her above his shoulders, spinning
as fast as he possibly could, until the crescendo was reached.
He put her down, everyone applauded and a waiter brought them
two shots of ouzo.
“That was the best sex I ever had”, a dizzied Lambrini
said as she flopped into her chair.
“All of you is Greek?” Lambrini’s newfound
love asked us during their break, with three other dancers standing
behind him. We all nodded, smiled, and he said, “You all
dance?” Of course we did. All of us had grown up dancing
in a Hellenic dance troupe, all performing different types of
dances from different regions of Greece. Dina and I danced in
two different troupes in Ohio, Lambrini, Maria and Connie danced
with one troupe in Pittsburgh. Connie even mastered the drums
and would often accompany the dancers with a live performance.
“Next dance, you all come dance with us”.
“You know Hasaposerviko?” a pudgier dancer standing
behind Niko asked us.
“That’s what we play”.
The music for the Hasaporserviko began playing, and the men bounced
to our table to grab out hands and pull us to the floor. The dance
is fast, exhilarating and joyous the basic steps never change,
unless you add your personal flare. We circled around the dance
floor and before long we began to weave our way in and out of
the tables, picking up people as we danced through. Two Frenchmen
came between Maria and I. An Italian woman and her daughter joined
in at the end of the line. By the end of the song, we had almost
the entire restaurant crammed on the tiny dance floor. None of
us spoke the same language, but we were all dancing to the same
song.
If music is the universal language of the world, then dancing
is the communication. It conveys local customs traditions rooted
in an ancient cultural. These steps had been danced in our families
for generations and the music coursed through our veins. And for
one night, we were able to jump language barriers through the
art of dance.
Leah Michalos
holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from The School of
the Art Institute of Chicago. She grew up dancing with the
St. Haralambos Hellenic Dancers, with whom she first traveled
to the "homeland," dancing in the village square
of her grandfather's native Chios. She currently lives in
Brooklyn, New York where she works as a freelancer.
