The Stamna Dancing Group

Yiannis Konikkos established the Stamna dancing group in 1990. The group comprises 10 dancers, five men and five women. We also have new dancers who are currently training to join the group. We perform shows at weddings and festivals, and also in hotels and restaurants. Stamna also offer dancing lessons.

This experienced, professional group specializes in traditional and popular dancing - both Cypriot and Greek - dressed in traditional costume. The music is both traditional and popular. For example, the Cypriot music features the violin, laude and tamboutchia while Greek music is derived from bouziki, keyboards and drums

The group will accept bookings in the Paphos, Polis and Limmasol areas. Stamna provides the dance music on a CD, but a live band can be provided at extra cost.

    The Traditional Cypriot Dances

Cypriot dances are mainly of the type performed by a confronted pair, usually two men or two women, or men's solo dances displaying virtuosity and often performed with a hand-held object, either a scythe, knife, sieve, or tumbler. In their steps and general characteristics - such as the movement of the body and limbs - they have features in common with dances of the historic Greek island area (the Asia Minor seaboard, Aegean islands and cities, and the Ionian isles)

Apart from these common features, Cypriot dances are distinguished by steps peculiar to certain localities, such as stamping in one spot with the feet, crossed alternately in front of each other, in the "second" and particularly the "third" "kartchilamas" and in the "syrtos" for men. Improvisation is another characteristic of Cypriot dances and may be attributed to their being performed by only two people and so to an overriding sense of comparison and, by extension, of competition. But it is to be noted that improvisation and the freedom of the dancer to do his own thing is constrained by the community's severe strictures upon any excesses. Indeed, the more inward-looking the community, the more rigorous the restraints.