Key Foods

So making Greek food is not the easiest. I don’t know how my Mum and Yiayias do it but it is challenging!  If i was back home in London, I would have got them to make me some dishes to use in my performance but unfortunately I cant do that because I’m here in Lincoln. I cant really ask them to post me food because that don’t really work, so I’m left down to my own initiative. I don’t want to attempt to cook something difficult for it to be awful and put my audience of Greek food for life! Therefore, these past few days I’ve been trying to find a solution of what I can come up with! I have attempted to look at Greek restaurants in the area to see if they had anything to offer and I have only discovered one actual restaurant that caters Greek food. Unfortunately there menu didn’t have the traditional dishes that I wanted.

Nevertheless, I have now finalised my dishes and I’m going to create a Greek Meze starter.

This will include;

  • Pita Bread with tzatziki and hummus dips.
  • Greek salad with feta cheese seasoned in Cypriot olive oil, lemon and salt.
  • Vine leafs with seasoned rice inside – (Koupebia) as we call them .
  • Cyprus olives.
  • Finally a shot of Ouzo to wash it down.

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My Greek Meze platters for the picnic will look something like this. Little selections of mine and my family’s favourite Greek traditional foods.  I also believe this works better for the performance, as it is a picnic theme and these are foods which us Cypriots would genuinely take on our picnic as they are finger foods which cause minimal mess!

Stop Questioning

Within solo performance, I have found that I am continuously questioning myself and my ideas when there is no need too. To continue, I think I have been overcomplicating things for myself when there is no need to as it is pretty simple. It’s just getting your ideas down and attempting them as you won’t know if they work without trying them. I have realised this week that it is no good over thinking and to just go with it. Furthermore, having this refreshed mind frame has really benefited me.

I believed that I did not have enough material however after gathering everything all together and combining it, I couldn’t be any more wrong. In fact, I had far too much material.  Today, I have gone through all my ideas and got rid of what I consider to not add as much substance to the performance.

I have now narrowed my performance down in to 7 key areas which I am going to talk about.

The order they will go in as follows

  • Introducing the show with my Greek Cypriot name Anastasia Nicolaou.
  • Introduce Cyprus as a little island in the Mediterranean Sea and establish that Greece and Cyprus are two very different places!
  • Introduce the Greek foods on offer.
  • Introduce the Turkish invasion on Cyprus in 1974 and explain the divide in the country.
  • Introduce a comedic section on Greek mothers etc my mother!
  • Introduce Sundays as Family days.
  • Finishing off on Greek school Saturdays.

At the moment, reading my performance in those bullet points does not do it justice. However, once the performance has formed in its structure and the dialogue is finalised I believe this could be a strong performance. I have learnt over the past few weeks within Solo Performance, it is all about how you put your work together and the simplest of ideas can become extremely clever.

My performance aim is to have a show like Angelo Tsarouchas. Tsarouchas Performances have the potential such as my own performance to become very messy as we are mentioning many different aspects. However the way he has structured his show is extremely clever as Tsarouchas intertwines many different moments which all flow perfectly. Having watched many of his shows, he has given a huge insight of how I should portray the performance and structure the script.


 


 

YouTube. (2016). Angelo Tsarouchas Live at the World Famous Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, CA.. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQO3mEo9V04 [Accessed 25 May 2016].


 

A Picnic Theme

Initially my performance was going to be set in a restaurant but after some reconsideration, I have now decided to have it set as a picnic theme. The reason for this, throughout the module I have been told to keep the performance as authentic as possible. A picnic theme is personal to me as myself and family from a young age would always get together every Sunday and if the weather was nice we would either go out for a picnic or have a BBQ in the garden. At the moment, I am thinking of having traditional foods that my family would eat laid out on the picnic to heighten the authenticity of the performance. I feel as though having a specified number of audience members and catering food for them will enrich the Greek theme and enables the audience members to get more involved with the performance. Therefore, I believe that attempting to recreate the stage based on my family’s Sundays would enhance my story telling and help produce compelling pictures of how a Greek Cypriots life can be.

Angelo Tsarouchas – Its All Greek.

Within my performance, a key solo performer I have looked at and incorporated throughout my work is Angelo Tsarouchas. Tsarouchas is a Canadian Greek solo performer best known for his stand up comedy. Tsarouchas performances are based on his Greek heritage roots which provide the rich authentic material for his shows. With this in mind, he has been the main influence for preparing my show. The purpose of my performance is to portray autobiographical stories of my culture with light hearted elements which occasionally touch on more serious tones. Tsarouchas composes himself exceptionally well throughout his performances with a strong delivery and delivers his show with purpose. Nevertheless, having watched Tsarouchas Its All Greek show many times during this module, it has been a guidance of how i should deliver my performance with confidence and clarity. Furthermore, Its All Greek has taught me how to relax and have fun with the performance incorporating jokes which banter myself alongside the Greek community. To conclude, i struggle to find comedians funny nevertheless i do believe Angelo Tsarouchas is hilarious and does what he is suppose to do. Its All Greek to me is highly fascinating as i could watch him for hours without getting bored. This what i want to achieve with my 8-12 minute performance.  The standard is set to reach Tsarouchas.

 

YouTube. (2016). Angelo Tsarouchas – It’s All Greek. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0WTWb1vAHc [Accessed 25 May 2016].


 

Zorba’s Dance

Dancing is a huge part of the Greek Cypriot culture and the community enjoy to have a good dance. There are many different traditional Greek dances such as

  • Syrtos
  • Kalamatianos
  • Pyrrhichios
  • Hasapiko
  • Ballos
  • Karsilamas
  • Tsamiko
  • Syrto
  • Aptaliko
  • Zeybekiko
  • Tsifteteli

Nevertheless the dance which is most common is Syrtaki which is known as Zorbas Dance.

In my performance, I will be incorporating moments of the traditional Syrtaki. I am planning to interact with the audience and hopefully they will be willing to attempt in dancing the Zorba, to enhance the Greek party theme.

 

YouTube. (2016). FlashMob in Manchester – Greek Zorbas (Official). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJM5qjbjOdc [Accessed 25 May 2016].