Mystery 100 The Sacred Songs: Summer Easter

From 21.00 to midnight, a genuine folk festival will be set up with selected songs and dances from all regions of Hellenism. An invitation to rebaptize in the traditional ritual and interweaving of the Greek feast that resists, insists and refuses to be reduced to mere consumer “entertainment”.

“My lady of the vineyard, my lady mistress of wine and joy!..”

The death and transmigration of the Great Mother-Goddess comes to mark the culmination of summer with the completion of the productive cycle, the offerings of grapes, the anticipation and promise of a new “recycling” of nature with the beginning of the new season. Augustus “a table-bearer, a sycologist and… a duplicitous one” are the popular names that refer to the abundance of his fruits, while the classical address is invoked “August, my good month, may you be twice a year!”

It is not just a holiday season but also a return and pilgrimage of emigrants to their homelands and to the deserted mountain villages that are coming back to life. The community is reunited, relationships are reconnected and the “xenakia” dance and sing at the summer festivals, at the holy pilgrimages, at the “Panagies of Greece”. The festive cycle begins on August 1st (with the supplications), culminates on August the 15th (with the pandemonium “tranous” dances) and continues until the 23rd of the month (honoring the “nine days” of the Virgin Mary with human intimacy).

A few words about the Mystery 100 The Sacred Songs:

The series of activities with the general title Mystery 100 Sacred Songs focuses on traditional events and rituals in the Greek music and dance tradition. The scientific and artistic curator is Lambros Liavas, professor of ethnomusicology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Rituals in the cycle of Life cover the human journey “from cradle to death”: birth, childhood, love-marriage, estrangement, death. While the events in the cycle of Time and Vegetation “homeopathically” accompany agricultural and livestock occupations through symbolic acts-customs with the widespread participation of the community. The events are spread throughout 2023 and mark the main seasonal stations.