20 Question Time... Global Greek Style: Conversation with Vicky Yiannoutsos

Hellenism for her is a  Greek life-force and she made it her mission to get Socrates Now to tour Downunder... which she did!  

20 Question Time... Global Greek Style 

with one of our very talented and accomplished Global Greek Ambassadors in the World, 

Film maker, director and acting coach

  Vicky Yiannoutsos
Auckland, New Zealand

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20 Question Time... Global Greek Style
Hellenism is…

 Greek life-force transmitted through language, food, music, story and dance, delivered in the spirit of  Zorba  - “to be alive is to take off your belt and look for trouble”.

Did your Hellenism help get you where you are? How?

My Hellenism informs me emotionally, aesthetically, and creatively, affecting the way I think, feel and function in the world. It not only helped get me where I am, it fundamentally designed it.

Being Greek: Best Part….

being born into, informed by and deeply connected to the most complex nation in the world which birthed western civilisation

Being Greek: Worst part….

being born into, informed by and deeply connected to the most complex nation in the world which birthed western civilisation

Greeks who inspire(d) you…

Socrates, 

Kazantsakis, 

Kavafy, 

Mercouri, 

Callas, 

Mouskouri

Greeks you like…

genuine and sincere Hellenes who strive to connect with the complexities of being Greek, and the inherent struggle we all share.

Greeks you don’t like…

insincere poseurs who strut their stuff intent on proving they’re someone they’re not.

Your favourite Greek word…

kefi

Your favourite Greek spot in the world…

Kastos

Your favourite Greek song…

Strose to Stroma sou yia Dyo. 
Embodies all my childhood memories.

Your favourite Greek meal… Who cooked it?

Avgolemono. 

Everytime I go home, my mother makes it for me. 

It represents security, love, family. 

In turn, I like to cook it for my close friends.

Your favourite Greek book…

Zorba the Greek, 
the poetry of Kavafy

Your happiest Greek memory….

The first 6 months I spent in Greece as a young girl, staying on Kastos (my dad’s birthplace) and travelling around the rest of Greece. 

A light switched on. 

Nothing was to ever to be the same again!!

Your saddest Greek memory…

Locking up the family home on Kastos and taking my aunty Olga to the mainland.

Global Greeks at the Nobels  - Who would you nominate? Why?

Yannis Simonides

John Psathas

For their current day contribution to the Arts

You meet the Prime Minister of Greece on the beach this summer…What would you tell him?

You’re fired!!

You are the Prime Minister of Greece… for a week!

What three things would you do first? 

I’d fire the EU, declare national bankruptcy and re-introduce the  drachma. Then I’d introduce a minimum livable wage for all adults, with free health care, and begin funding businesses and communities developing sustainable living opportunities. I’d return the marbles. (see below for more)

You’re one of our several million Global Greeks who are Greece’s Ambassadors in the World. Public Diplomacy at its best!  Have you done something to help Greece today?

An email was sent this morning to the Greek community in Australia towards bringing the wonderful Yannis Simonides with Socrates Now to the Antipodes in 2014. Fingers crossed (GGW note: it worked, Yannis Simonides toured New Zealand and Australia with Socrates Now earlier this year, the cover shot is from the promotion!)

Who would you include in a ‘Global Greeks for Greece’ Dream Team?

The Global Greeks for Greece Think Tank (see below) would be made up of international Greeks top in their fields. Economists, Businessmen, Artists, IT experts, Visionaries etc whose modus operandum is growth, not greed.

And now for the best part… 
Create a picture of YOUR Greece … what would you put in it?

As above, I’d remove the ridiculous notion that the people of Greece can pay the country’s debt and go back to the drachma. 
Then I’d create a national fast broadband system, give every rate paying household an IPad, and set up a global online Pledge Greece fund as a central agency receiving contributions from Greeks living out of Greece. 
From that fund a Global Greeks for Greece think tank (see above) would consult with central agencies (not controlled by the government or the church) in Greece to invest in creativity, innovation and sustainable living operations with a long-term vision to heal and re-build a new Greece. I reckon the 9 million odd Greeks out of Greece would come on board such an online revolution!!  
In fact, I know they would. 
PledgeGreece -  
I pledge the first 1000 drachma!!!

Thank you Vicky - let's start working on it! 
Great Talking to you!
Ευχαριστούμε πολύ!

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Talented and multi-awarded Greek New Zealand filmmaker Vicky Yiannoutsos was born and grew up in New Zealand.  Since first visiting Greece as a young girl with her parents, Vicky has identified the myth of Demeter and Persephone as a metaphor for the migrant experience and she went on to make a film that depicted it beautifully...

More about Vicky Yiannoutsos

At Global Greek World, We ♥ Greece...and it shows!

 © GlobalGreekWorld 2014 All Rights Reserved

Global Greek Yannis Simonides takes 'Socrates Now' Downunder: a MUST SEE!

Socrates Now is in New Zealand at last!

  

Yannis Simonides portrayal of one of Greece's most famous philosophers, Socrates, is a masterpiece!

Take a seat in the court of ancient Athens as Socrates goes on trial for his life. 

Hear the godfather of philosophy face his accusers with his trademark wit, cutting logic, and the courage of his ideals. 

Consider his arguments on virtue, justice, politics, civic duty, love of life and hope in death, and make your own judgment.

Engage in the post-performance "Socratic" discussion and opportunity to discuss your verdict with the actor.

Think.   Question.   Change. 

Socrates Now brings to life one of history's most famous trials, as reported by the great man's faithful student Plato, in the timeless classic The Apology of Socrates. 

Socrates does not apologise to his accusers, he defends himself with humour and wisdom-against false charges of not believing in the gods of the state and corrupting the Athenian youth, and against a guilty verdict and sentence to death.

Emmy Award winner Yannis Simonides channels the eccentric and magnetic personality of Socrates and offers a profoundly social, political, but above all human work which captivates the audience with its immediacy and simplicity.

The wisdom of the Ancient Greek philosopher is, in an ever-changing world, and in the search for a life of meaning, more relevant now than ever before.

As this amazing one-man act continues to captivate audiences in Greece and around the world year after year, Yannis Simonides brings his Elliniko Theatro to New Zealand after his successful and highly commended performances around Australia.

You can always see it close to home in Athens, but if you can't, we highly recommend you see it whenever it comes to a theatre near you, wherever in the world you are! 

 Yannis Simonides
A consummate actor,
A superb Socrates, 

a unique and mesmerising performance,

a chance in a lifetime! 

Don't miss it!

Greek New Zealand Film Maker Vicky Yiannoutsos,

one of the people who helped make it happen, 

 standing proudly in front of the Socrates Now New Zealand Tour poster.
When Vicky saw Socrates Now in Athens,
she made it her mission to get it to New Zealand ... and with a bit of help, she succeeded!

Don't miss your chance to see this unique performance if you are in New Zealand.

Scheduled Performances (in English)

Wellington

 James Cabaret (Greek Community Hall)

5th April 8 pm

7th April 1 pm 

 Palmerston North

 Massey University

9th April 12.30 pm

Auckland

Concert Chamber

 12th April 8pm 

Selwyn College

 14th April 11 am

 Check out the Socrates Now website 

and book your seats now!

Yannis Simonides

Born in Constantinople and raised in Athens, Yannis is a Yale Drama School trained actor/writer and Emmy winning producer. 

He was professor and chair of the NYU Tisch Drama Department, producer of GOTelecom and director of Hellenic Public Radio in New York. He is the founder and director of the Greek Theater Foundation (Elliniko Theatro) of the U.S.A. and Greece, now in its 35th successful year. 

His performance work ranges from Euripides to Shakespeare to pieces adapted from the writings of Cavafy, Makriyannis, and Gogol. Among his patrons are the National Endowment for the Arts, The Greek Ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs, The A. S. Onassis, Time Warner and Mobil Foundation.

Yannis has embodied the role of the great philosopher for Socrates Now  in 300 performances at theatres, festivals, schools, organisations and universities, in 15 countries. He has staged marathon audience-participation Readings- Celebrations of the Iliad and Odyssey at the Library of Alexandria, the Dahesh Museum and the 92nd Street Y in New York, and in Troy, Chios, Kos, Delos, Pylos, Malta, Sicily and Ithaca, at the Getty Villa in Malibu, at the Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels and at the Hellenic Centre in London for the 2012 Olympic Games.

In 2009 Yannis Simonides was honoured by the city of Athens as Ambassador of Hellenism for his lifelong service to Greek culture worldwide. 

In 2012 he was invited to speak at TEDx ACADEMY  and in 2013 performed for the Ecumenical Patriarchate. 

 

I cannot teach anybody anything. 

I can only make them think.

Socrates

At Global Greek World, We ♥ Greece...and it shows! 

 © GlobalGreekWorld 2014 All Rights Reserved

Global Greek Filmmaker Vicky Yiannoutsos' Persephone's Plight Comes Home to Greece...

“I carry two cultures, two languages, two worlds.
I belong to both, I belong to neither.
I am Persephone destined forever to journey between them.”

Vicky Yiannoutsos - Persephone’s Plight

Talented and multi-awarded Greek New Zealand filmmaker Vicky Yiannoutsos is very excited this week! She is in Greece in pursuit of her dream: bringing her multi-media installation exhibition Persephone’s Plight home to Greece.

In fact, Persephone's Plight homeward journey has already begun.

As we write, Vicky is adding the finishing touches for Persephone's homecoming, which will take place in Kephalonia tomorrow, at the Ionion Centre for Arts and Culture where from the 7th to the 10th of October, Vicky and Persephone will be the honoured guests.

Drawn from over 20 years of travels between Greece and New Zealand, Persephone’s Plight is an exhibition of multiple film and video images which embodies the cycle of the seasons, the phases of birth and death, their activity, their dormancy and the regenerative phases of their eternal cycle.  

Vicky Yiannoutsos outside MIC Toi Rerehiko Gallery 

in Auckland, New Zealand 

with the Persephone's Plight exhibition poster

Photo Source: Emmanuel Yiannoutsos

For Vicky, it is a metaphor for the 20th Century migrant experience – a time of abduction from the Motherland by the lure of the Fruits of the New World. Since first visiting Greece as a young girl, Vicky has identified the myth of Demeter and Persephone as a metaphor for the migrant experience.

Persephone’s Plight is a new chapter in a body of work which has been in progress all my life, where I continue to chose the moving image to express the complexity, confusion, richness and joy that comes from living between cultures.

The year man walked on the moon, my parents announced they were going back to Greece for 6 months and taking me with them, I flatly refused. I’d miss a year of school. I’d miss my friend Mandy!

But the Gods had a plan, the planets were already in motion.

In 1969 I took my own ‘big step for humankind’ and crossed the world to a world that would change my world, forever. I found my emotional touchstone, and would spend the rest of my life returning back there. My father tells me that I announced matter-of-factly that I would one day make a film of our island of Kastos to show the world.

I have used the camera to bridge the restlessness I feel living between two worlds, and has underpinned my work as a film-maker over the last 20 years. From the shooting of the documentary Visible Passage, its ‘20 years on’ follow-up Scattered Seeds, various feature film scripts, and many stories, poems, journals, and letters. This exhibition has given me the opportunity to unpack and abstract some of these ideas, motifs and themes into a gallery setting.

A migrant carries within them two worlds, and they live within the friction and unease of many contradictions. They try to reconcile them. They look for lumber.

When they find their lumber, they build a bridge.

I build mine by telling stories through film...

About Persephone’s Plight 

Vicky represents the 4 Seasons of Migration through the quartets of Birth, Separation, Yearning, Return. Like Persephone abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld where she yearns to return to her Mother, the migrant is abducted by the New World. Separated across the waters, s/he and her Mother yearn for each other.

As Persephone eats the fruits of the Underworld and is irreversibly changed, the migrant partakes of the New World, and is changed. Though the Patrida calls, s/he can never permanently return.

Destined to journey between worlds, (s)he, like her Mother, is trapped in

yearning. The generations that follow – the new seeds – inherit this yearning, this love of a distant culture through Music, Language, Food, Dance, and Stories.

Maybe they can one day return, maybe they can one day stay?...

When we asked  Vicky how she felt, now that Persephone's Plight had brought her back to where it all began, her answer was essentially straight from the soul:

I saw it as an opportunity to return the work back to source in the Ionian Seas– a full cycle if you like. My father, now 92, can’t return to Greece, but I can bring him back to the waters that bore him, through this exhibition. I feel this is quite mystic, at this time in his life, and our relationship.

I’ve been travelling between Greece and NZ all my life, and don’t see that stopping. I love the Ionian isles and am happy to respond in any way that is called upon me to do so, in the future. In many ways, I’m a messenger, or the projection for others who have had similar experiences. It is my job to elicit or stimulate the emotions that exist in those of us, who know this experience of living between worlds. It’s complex, and its deeply personal, and everyone has their own unique emotional response to it, yet the ‘soil’ of the experience – the rich and often complicated relationship with the Motherland – is common and binding...

Strikingly relevant to all of us who have grown up between two cultures, Persephone's Plight presents the eternal and ongoing dilemma of living within two worlds, a dilemma which is particularly appropriate now, as many of Greece's young people retrace the steps their parents took in the 50's and 60's. 

Persephone's Plight is a unique multimedia experience, complemented by fellow Greek New Zealander, John Psathas' composition Flight on Light, beautifully executed by Greek clarinet virtuoso Manos Achalinotopoulos. 

We wish Vicky well and look forward to seeing her exhibition in Athens and in every corner of the Global Greek World very soon.

Bravo Vicky - Καλή Επιτυχία! Wish we could be there with you today...

At Global Greek World, We ♥ Greece...and it shows!

© GlobalGreekWorld 2012 All Rights Reserved