Kyriakos Moisidis (GR: dance)

Kyriakos Moisidis is a prolific researcher, instructor, and performer of Greek traditional dance. He was born in 1968 in the village of Prohoma, near Thessaloniki in Greece. His family origins trace back to Pontic Greeks from the region of Kars (present-day northeastern Turkey). He learned to dance at an early age and has taught dance since 1985, including for two groups in Prohoma before leaving to pursue a degree (earned in 1991) and career in business.

Leaving his marketing position in 1997 to dedicate himself fully to Greek dance, Kyriakos completed a degree in Physical Education and Athletics from Aristotle University in Thessaloniki with a major in traditional dance in 2003. Throughout this period Kyriakos has conducted extensive, ongoing research on traditional Greek dance, music, and customs. While well versed in the dances of all regions of Greece, he is in high demand for his expertise on dance traditions from Pontos, Kappadokia, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Thrace in northern Greece.

He prepared the entries about Pontian dance in the «Encyclopedia of Pontian Greeks» (editor: Malliaris Pedia), has contributed works on dance for various congresses, academic and popular journals and newspapers, and wrote for his own page in the magazine “Amastris” dedicated to Pontic culture and history.

Kyriakos has participated in hundreds of dance performances in Greece and abroad. Moreover, he is invited to give numerous seminars on Greek dance every year both in Greece and worldwide; he has taught in Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Brazil, Japan, Australia, the United States and other countries. Since 2000, Kyriakos has also organized an annual 10-day long summer dance conference in Greece and since 2009 a ten days tour at villages in Northern Greece both well attended by dancers from around the world. He taught in more than 25 dance groups in the wider area of Central Macedonia and he also instructed for 15 years the course "Greek traditional dances" ("Ελληνικοί παραδοσιακοί χοροί") as a professor at Music Science and Art department of University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki.

Currently he teaches in Thessaloniki the dance association, “Kentro Meletis Paradosiakon Horon – Kyklos” which he co-founded in 2005. Kyriakos is also the president of "Professors of Physical Education with Specialty on Greek Traditional Dance" union.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COfHb_IlLUs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsdLuYWikMc

Photo: Vaso Kanigaridou