First Living Arts Exchange event: February 25, 2005, at Katarina Kyrka, Södermalm, Stockholm at 1900 hrs. Song recital by Aliki Kayaloglou, accompanied by Michalis Sourvinos, classical guitar. The concert was a tribute to the Nobel Prize Winners George Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, the Greek poets whose poems were set to music by great composers like Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis. Aliki Kayaloglou is one of the greatest interpreters of Greek poetic-song, and she has collaborated with both Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis in concerts and recordings. Aliki usually gives recitals dedicated to poets whose work she admires, such as Seferis, Sappho, Elytis, Lorca, Cavafy, Ritsos and Gatsos. This event was facilitated by cooperation between Katarina Kyrka, the Greek Embassy and Living Arts Exchange, with support from The Swedish-Greek Cultural Committee. Jim Potts introduced the recital, after the words of welcome by the Reverend Anders Björnberg and the Ambassador of Greece in Sweden, Mr Nicolaos Couniniotis. The concert was a great success, with an enthusiastic audience of around 500. There was also a seminar on Music and Poetry on February 24th at the Greek Community Association Hall. Jim Potts spoke on "Theodorakis, Britten, Dylan: Who did most for Poetry?". Further information from Gia Giovanni at the Cultural Section, Greek Embassy, Stockholm.

Jim Potts, born Bristol, England, worked for the British Council  in the UK, Ethiopia, Kenya, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Australia, Sweden. He was Director of the British Council in Czechoslovakia, Australia and Sweden, and Head of East and Central Europe Department in London. He was also Cultural Attache in Prague and Stockholm. He was awarded the OBE in the New Year’s Honours, 1998. Jim studied English Literature at the University of Oxford (BA, MA), Education at London University and Film and Drama Production at Bristol University. Jim made many short films in Ethiopia and Kenya and worked as a media consultant and journal editor. He now concentrates on writing, particularly poetry (which has been published in Greek, Swedish, Czech and Romanian) and articles about literature and music. "Corfu Blues" (his collection of poems and prose pieces about Greece), was published by Ars Interpres, Stockholm, in March 2006. 

Rea Ann-Margaret Mellberg, born in Piraeus, studied at the Universities of Stockholm and Lund. She obtained her PhD in Modern Greek Poetry from Lund University in 2004. She has worked as a university teacher (Stockholm University, 1973-1977) and as a translator of Swedish literature into Greek; for the Ministry For Foreign Affairs in Greece and as Cultural Attache in the Embassy of Greece in Sweden since 1995. Her main translations into Greek include Modern Swedish Poetry, Plays of Strindberg and Ibsen, works by Dagerman, Söderberg, Almquist, Swedenborg and others. She received an award from the Swedish Academy in 1991, for literary translations from Swedish to Greek . She received another award in 1994, from the Swedish Writers' Union, for translations from Swedish to Greek. In 1995 she received the Silver Cross of The Polar Star from the Swedish State, for her work in cultural exchange between Greece and Sweden. She is a member of the Greek and Swedish Writers' Unions, a  member of the Swedish Board of the Friends of the Swedish Institute in Athens and a member of the Board of the Greek Cultural House in Stockholm. She has organised many important cultural events in Stockholm.

With their long and wide experience of international cultural relations work and project management, Jim Potts and Ann-Margaret Mellberg aim to draw in experts and creative artists from their extensive global networks to advise, lead and collaborate on specific projects. 

Imagine, for instance, a series of writers’ workshops, inspiring creative retreats and professional seminars led by experienced tutors in one of the most beautiful and unspoilt villages and regions of Greece- in Vitsa, one of 46 villages of the Zagori region in Epirus, situated around 1000 metres above sea level, with panoramic views of wooded mountain ranges and perched high above the dramatic Vikos Gorge . The Living Arts Exchange has been established to create opportunities and to supply this need. The ancient mountain settlement of Vitsa, with its stunning stone architecture, boasts houses and churches from the 16^th century, and age-old cobbled paths and steps which lead down to the gorge. As a settlement,Vitsa has roots stretching back to 900BC. It also boasts a number of beautifully-restored guest-houses, small family hotels designed and furnished in the traditional Zagori fashion. Not far from Vitsa, elegant stone bridges and monasteries can be visited. The bustling city of Ioannina is only 40 minutes away by car, and apart from the fascinating island and its frescoed Byzantine churches in the Lake of Ioannina and the remains of the harem of Ali Pasha on the acropolis of Ioannina, there are other famous sights such as the ancient theatre and oracle of Dodona. 

The light and air itself is a source of inspiration in Vitsa, not to mention the mountain views, the invigorating walks, the vegetation and wild flowers, the tranquility, the monastic peace and quiet with little to be heard other than the distant tinkling of  goats’ and sheep bells. All this makes Vitsa an ideal centre for ecotourism as well as a cultural centre. Vitsa recently hosted (September 2004) a highly successful workshop and course which attracted 30 women from Sweden, Norway, Britain, Ecuador, Italy, the USA and Greece. The local people and village authorities are extremely welcoming and pleased to see visitors from abroad. They want Vitsa to become a significant cultural center for both Greeks and visitors from overseas, and literary culture is high on the agenda, with many Living Arts Exchange writing courses and workshops planned.

There could be few more stimulating environments in which to share insights and hone your creative skills, whether in writing (poetry, drama, autobiography) or other art-forms. The area is as rich with associations of famous historical figures like Lord Byron, Edward Lear and Ali Pasha (and Kyria Frosini) as it is with the cultural traditions of the semi-nomadic Sakataksani people and of the Zagorian Epirots who went abroad to make their careers, to endow the villages and schools back home, and to build their impressive stone mansions.

Walks around the village and short hikes down the Vikos Gorge (and optional treks through the National Park) are a must , and other cultural excursions of historical, architectural and environmental interest are available.     

NB The Living Arts Exchange will also organize projects and workshops in other inspiring environments and venues, but the initial focus will be on Vitsa, Zagori.

“Few parts of Greece are more surprising, or more beguiling, than Zagori…The beauty of its landscapes is unquestionable…..the last place that one would expect to find some of the most imposing architecture in Greece” (Greece, The Rough Guide, p 278).

“The region of Zagoria, north of Ioannina, offers some breathtaking vistas….With winding, cobbled and stepped streets, the villages could have leapt straight out of a Grimm fairy tale.” (Lonely Planet, Greece, p 335-336)

“Whenever their talk veered to their summer pastures in the Zagora, all their eyes lit up like those of the children of Israel at the thought of Canaan, and all spoke at once. What pigeons, what hares! You didn’t need wine there- the air made you drunk; and as for the shade, the grass, the trees and the water- why the water came gushing out of the living rock as cold as ice, you couldn’t drink it it was so cold, and you could drink it by the oka, and feel like a giant….Words failed them.” (Roumeli, Travels in Northern Greece, Patrick Leigh Fermor, p. 60).

“From Delvino onwards the road rises abruptly from mountain to mountain, from ridge to ridge, ribbon-like, over-hanging, with steep climbs. 

All round, the mountain-sides supporting the bare, treeless peaks are green with wild ilex and oak. 

Lower down, thick shady plane-trees cover the ravines. 

Crystal waters utter their cool song sweetly in the deep valleys…. 

At each new bend, as the road climbs higher, the sky opens wider; eyes embrace beautiful, ever-expanding worlds. 

Plains and mountains, rivers and seas dream in the blue light. They level out in the distance. They mingle with the boundless sky. 

High, terribly high. The great contentment which the sensitive traveler experiences in these high blue solitudes is doubled by the secret feeling of delight that no ugliness of the human crowd reaches here. 

The motionless mountain silence prompts with a certain secret pleasure in the soul the happiness of complete isolation. Something which seems outside life……One embraces life more completely on the heights. Perhaps because one comes closer to God…… 

High mountains, shadowing mountains, wooded mountains, mountain shapes like petrified waves in space, in a blue, mystical light. 

Somewhere round here was the religion of ancient Greece born. Dodona, Io, Zeus the Thunderer. 

One experiences more deeply the mystery of the world’s birth, seeing from these heights the god-created crown of the mountains of Epiros waving bluely and dipping up and down in space….. 

At the foot of the mountain-village, goat-folds. He-goats and she-goats. Bleatings and bells. Kitsos and the shepherdess Mosco. Daphnis and Chloe. Pan, the Great Pan, who never dies up here. Deathless, incorruptible Life….” 

In The Epiros from Greek Travels by Kostas Pasagianis, Athens 1931, translated by Philip Sherrard and quoted in The Pursuit of Greece, Denise Harvey and Company, Athens.

“Europe’s most outstanding area of natural beauty. The wild flowers, including over 50 varieties of orchids, are an absolute joy.”   www.travelux.co.uk

“Places of such beauty are rare and appeal to all.”  www.travelux.co.uk

“Vikos Gorge is one of the most breathtaking natural sites in all of Greece and one of the largest and finest gorges in Europe.”   http://www.epcon.

"The most striking (villages) of the Western Zagorachoria....are those perched by the Vikos Gorge, possibly the most dramatic mountainscape in all of Greece...Monodendri and Vitsa are within sight of one another...above the upper reaches of the Vikos Gorge. Vitsa is less huddled together and is to many tastes the more attractive of the two, its upper quarter having the views and the lower quarter being the more pleasant to sit or wander in..."   "The Most Beautiful Villages of Greece and the Greek Islands" by Mark Ottaway and Hugh Palmer, Thames and Hudson, 1998 (pp83-84).   

POEM BY FRANCES CORNFORD

Susan to Diana

Villanelle

Your youth is like a water-wetted stone,
a pebble by the living sea made rare,
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

Behold it flushed like flowers newly blown,
miraculously fresh beyond compare,
your youth is like a water-wetted stone.

For when the triumphing tide recedes, alone
the stone will stay, and shine no longer there
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

But lie and dry as joyless as a bone,
because the sorceress sea has gone elsewhere.
Your youth is like a water-wetted stone.

Then all your lovers will be children, shown
their treasure only transitory-fair,
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

Remember this before your hour is flown;
O you, who are so glorious, beware!
Your youth is like a water-wetted stone,
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms
Which I gaze on so fondly today
Were to change by tomorrow and fleet in my arms
Like fairy gifts fading away.
Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art
Let thy loveliness fade as it will
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own
And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known
To which time will but make thee more dear.
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets
But as truly loves on to the close
As the sunflower turns to her God when he sets
The same look which she turned when he rose.

Thomas Moore, from Irish Melodies