Greek kid dancers prepare to perform

Cousins Timothy Dubis of Ballwin and Rebecca Dubis of St. Louis are among the 40 kids in the St. Nicholas Greek Dancers. They will perform this month at the 2005 Festival of Nations celebration.

Timothy Dubis

The St. Nicholas dancers are just one of many ethnic organizations that will be n hand to entertain at the festival on July 23-24 in Tower Grove Park in south St. Louis. In addition to performances, the festival will have 100 booths and lots of hands-on activities.

Tower Grove Park is near Grand and Arsenal in South St. Louis. Admission is free.

Rebecca Dubis

The festival opens with a Parade of Nations at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Then the festival itself runs from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. An estimated 50,000 people are expected at the two-day event.

There will be three stages with continuous entertainment. There will be a special children's area with arts and crafts, storytelling and face-painting. There are demonstrations of handicraft traditions and, of course, plenty of ethnic cuisine.

(For more information, visit the International Institute website at www.iistl.org. Then, click on Events to go to festival details.)

The dance group at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in the Central West End includes about 60 dancers. There are 20 adult dancers and the 40 kids are divided into three different dance troupes.

The Arianthie Dancers are ages 6-8; the Garagouna Dancers, ages 9-11, and the Cariatides Dancers, 12-17.

Georgia Johnson has been the dance director for over 20 years.

Ten-year-old Timothy Dubis will be a 5th grader at Pierremont Elementary School this fall. He has been a dance troupe member since he was five. "I joined because my dad wanted me to," he said.

He said his favorite dance is the tsamiko. That's an ancient Greek dance first performed by soldiers. He likes the dance even though his costume includes a skirt.

His cousin, 10-year-old Rebecca Dubis, also began dancing at five. "When I was little, I watched my older cousins dance so I volunteered," she said.

Rebecca will be a 4th grader at Kennard Elementary School in the city of St. Louis. She also said the tsamiko is her favorite dance. Ms. Johnson said in recent years the tsamiko has been performed by female dancers.

Ms. Johnson said her groups will perform four different dance numbers at the festival. She has choreographed one of them, the trata, especially for their festival performance.

The dance troupe practices once a week during the summer to be ready for performances.

Rebecca said, in addition to festivals, she's performed at family weddings and baptisms.

Cassandra Mezines

Eleven-year-old Cassandra Mezines said the dancers have to practice a lot "in order to get us all dancing together." Greek dances involve groups, with few solos.

Cassandra will be a 7th grader this fall at Rogers Middle School in Affton. She said her favorite Greek dance is the chasaposserviko. Ms. Johnson describes it as "a northern Greek dance especially popular at weddings."

The church dance group helps the kids keep a link to their families' ethnic origins.

For instance, Cassandra and Timothy also attend "Greek school" classes where kids learn the Greek language and its separate alphabet. Asked about the difficulty of learning Greek, Cassandra said, "It's not as hard as learning English."

Timothy's cousin, Rebecca, said she doesn't attend "Greek school" because "I'm learning the language from my grandmother."

Athena King

Seven-year-old Athena King is one of the youngest of dancers. She's in the Arianthie group. Athena will be a 2nd grader at Henry Elementary School in Ballwin next fall.

She's been in the St. Nicholas dancers for two years. "I saw my brother dancing so I wanted to dance," she said.

She said footwork is the hardest part of dancing. "But, I'm getting better," she said.

The kids are dressed in native Greek dancing costumes before each performances.

But, dancing isn't the only extra-curricular activities for most of the dancers.

For instance, Athena plays soccer and has piano lessons using the full-sized keyboard. Cassandra plays a number of sports, including gymnastics. Timothy is also into sports, including swim and dive team. And his cousin, Rebecca, takes clarinet lessons.

Career plans include being a teacher, a doctor, a computer technician or a chemist.