Social Ballroom Festival

The Social Ballroom Festival, the most beloved ballroom dance fest in Athens, is back at the Agora of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), on September 16, 17 and 18, promising an unforgettable three-day weekend of tango, swing and disco beats. The festival’s program includes open dance classes, spectacular dance shows, concerts and DJ sets, inviting Athenians to put on their dancing shoes and set their bodies free, in the ultimate form of socialization and escape that is dance. During the first part of every evening, starting at 19.30, teachers and dancers will be revealing the secrets of a different dance each day (tango, swing, disco), to be followed at 21.00 by unique dance parties.

The program in detail:

Friday, Sept. 16 | Tango
19.30–21.00 Dance lesson
21.00–23.00 Dance party

Tango Acrópolis Artistic Team
Instructors: Luis Mestre - Elena Gossi
Orchestra: Tanguerissimo

On Friday, September 16, the artistic team Tango Acrópolis brings an Argentinean dance aroma to the SNFCC Agora. Six experienced dancers, led by Elena Gossi and Luis Mestre, will induct the audience into tango, while explaining how it is ultimately much more than a type of dance: it is a way of life, an art form and a means of communication.

The lesson will be followed by a “milonga” (a word meaning a tango dance night, hailing from the namesake musical style of the early 20th century), to the tunes played by the four-member band Tanguerissimo, conducted by Marios Strofalis.

Saturday, Sept. 17 | Swing
19.30–21.00 Dance lesson
21.00–23.00 Dance party

Instructors: Athens Lindy Hop
Orchestra: The Storyville Ragtimers

On Saturday, September 17, it’s time to swing! The lesson is conducted by Athens Lindy Hop, the team that pioneered the swing culture in Athens (the group was founded by Mariangela Salichou and Maria Nefeli Abatzi). Every year they organize the annual Vaudeville Revue, while their collaborations with the City of Athens Big Band makes for spectacular events, such as the recent “The Swing Era.”

The members of the team will teach lindy hop dancing, while the groove will be guaranteed by The Storyville Ragtimers, a seven-member band created in 2015 by Yannis Karagiannakis (cornet), Kostis Vazouras (soprano/alto saxophone) and Meletis Pogas (guitar, banjo), in order to revive the early 20th-century music of New Orleans (its district Storyville is, after all, the birthplace of jazz). 

Sunday, Sept. 18 | Disco
19.30–21.00 Dance lesson
21.00–23.00 Dance party

Design - Implementation: The Dance Club
Instructor: Dimitris Kranias
DJ: Giorgos Kokotas

On Sunday, September 18, temperatures soar as the SNFCC Agora sways to the beat of a disco fever night! Disco music first appeared in the mid-1970s and has never left the dance stage ever since. It mutated, gave birth to modern dance music as an offspring of soul and a precursor of house music, lived in historic clubs such as Studio 54, and influenced the other music genres as well as the dress code of millions of people around the world. And though disco dancing began as a solo affair, it then brought bodies closer together, as we will find out from instructor Dimitris Kranias of The Dance Club. Selecting the music on the decks will be DJ Giorgos Kokotas.

AGORA

Free Admission

The event is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).