Nadia Nicolaides

celebrates 40 years

NADIA NICOLAIDES has celebrated 40 years of teaching dance since the formation of her Dance Academy in Limasssol, with a performance last week at Limassol’s Pattichion Municipal Theatre.

Yes, it was Nadia who choreographed a huge homage to The Pink Panther when just after the 1974 invasion, Limassol’s Carnival boasted hundreds of perfectly costumed and perfectly timed Pink Panthers thronging the streets. I remember it well.

We survived.

At the packed the Pattichion for three nights last week - a film of it should be sent to every dance capital overseas - Nadia presented Maskarada.

This is a brilliant symbolic achievement of survival. True Cyprus dance art.

Maskarada, originally entitled "All The World’s a Stage," certainly reflects the complexity of life now and Nadia, with her assistants, gave us an evening of two hours hitting the contemporary notes without a fault

The Nicholaides Dance Academy was founded in 1967 by Nadia (Lambrou) Nicholaides and gave its first public performance at the Rialto Theatre in December 1972.

As Nadia mentioned in her dedication to the anniversary performance: "In the town of Limassol where we all live, work and play, the town where the arts had their beginnings and flourished.

Whether it’s our birthplace or adopted town, we must all remember that the greatest threat to its future is indifference."

A Cypriot raised in Africa, her natural ability for dance was noticed at a young age and she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Valdette Studio of dance in Zambia.

As an active member of the Junior Musical Society she participated in stage and television performances.

She furthered her dance studies at the University of Cape Town Ballet School.

While a student there, Nadia was chosen by the artistic director to dance with the professional danced company the ballets Firebird and Giselle. On her return to Cyprus in 1967, she established her own dance school in Limassol, The Studio of Ballet.

As a pioneer of dance on the island, she introduced, taught and promoted the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) in education and also the Cecetti and Tap syllabi and ever since has remained a staunch supporter and a key figure in the growth of the Royal Academy of Dance’s activities in Cyprus.

A number of her former pupils are now RAD-affiliated teachers.

She began a collaboration with CyBC Television where the Dance Academy’s productions were filmed and promoted here and abroad.

She also promoted dance through the various societies she founded, held office in, or participated in as a key member.

Nadia was invited by Loulou Symeonidou to set up and direct the Dance Department of the Ethnikon Odeion (national Conservatory) in Nicosia, a post she held for many years, assisted by ballet teacher Christiana Perentou.

Nadia has also won praise as a stylist and designer of theatrical and dancers’ costumes.

For eight continuous years, she spearheaded the organising of the International Summer dance Schools under the artistic direction of Lambros Lambrou in conjunction with Ballet Austin, the support of the friends of dance associates Ria Danielidou and Doros Heroas and the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Eucation and Culture.

Nadia was instrumental, as coordinator between the Cyprus government and Ballet Austin in Texas, in raising sponsorship for the world premiere of Lambros Lambrou’s ballet "Ulysses."

Nadia has two daughters, Natalie and Nicole - who are both dance educators - and has three grandchildren.

Maskarada

THE audience’s considerable excitement at Pattichion before the performance actually began was captured and they were given two hours of enthrallment from start to finish.

Evocative costumes, masks and headgear; black and white became colour. Even the hems of skirts had a life of their own, going this way and that. The tiniest tot relied on individual talents, not just because she was knee-high to teenagers but because she could dance well, too.

Males - whether hip-hopping or simply partnering or just adding choreographed stage business - knew just what they were doing.

At one moment when there had been lots of tap a slipper whizzed past my seat from an enthusiastic member of the audience.

A huge ballooned basket came from the skies and swung over a part of the stalls.

White drapes appeared from nowhere. The march of clogs, smiling and survivalistic was positive and not in the least militaristic.

This was youthful energy.

The cloggies had smiles on them and could pirouette if need be.

It was as if Degas had met Jackson Pollock and got wed.

Supernova-

Constellations

BRINGING together 27 artists from Britain, Greece and Cyprus Supernova-Constellations at the Powerhouse comprises painting, sculpture, video and installation, confirming that geometric abstraction is far from over, but has, rather, been absorbed and transformed by a new generation of artists.

While abstraction lies very much at the core of this exhibition, the works themselves are wide-ranging and diverse.

Supernova, featuring British artists, was curated by Caroline Douglas at the British Council, and was followed, in response, by the creation of Constellations, featuring Cypriot and Greek artists, curated by Yiannis Toumazis, at The Power House.

Phillip Allen, by Caroline Douglas.

"Phillip Allen’s paintings are born out of a continuous practice of sketching. Working on a small scale, on A5 paper, using felt pens, the sketches chart the inception and development of his abstract forms and arrangements.

"Typically, variations of particular formal arrangements will be pursued through a vast number of sketches, which are then developed in small series of paintings on boards of different sizes.

The scale and media of the paintings identifies them as gallery-based work, and Allen speaks about the ‘paradox of painting’ as the struggle played out within the traditional confines of the rectangular canvas.

"He likens the activity of painting to the Escher drawing of a staircase, which defies visual logic by playing with perspective so that the flights of stairs interlock in physically impossible ways.

"It is a hermetically closed field of endeavour, emphatically non-representational, which perpetually turns about itself to find new paths to explore."

Hirst skull solo show

takes $250m in sales

LONDON (Reuters)

British artist Damien Hirst's latest solo show "Beyond Belief" at London's White Cube gallery, which closes this weekend, has taken $250m in sales in just five weeks, the gallery said.

And that does not include the star work, a diamond encrusted platinum skull whose sale for an asking price of $100.5m is still under negotiation.

"The show has realised a quarter of a billion dollars worth of sales without the skull," a spokesman for the gallery said.

Apart from the skull, the show has many new works by Hirst including pickled creatures, a dove suspended in mid-air, a flayed human statue holding its own skin and a series of pictures of a Caesarean birth operation on Hirst's wife.

The 42-year-old is expected to take a 70% cut of the proceeds with the gallery taking the remaining 30%.

The past month has been a good one for the boy from Bristol.

Hirst, who first made his name with diced and pickled quadrupeds, last month became the world's most expensive living artist at auction when his "Lullaby Spring" pill cabinet sold at Sotheby's for £9.6m.

But the diamond encrusted skull is by far the most precious piece to date by Hirst, already a millionaire several times over.

As an indication of the wealth he has amassed since being spotted in 1991 by BritArt mogul Charles Saatchi, Hirst, who financed the skull himself, said he couldn't remember whether it had cost £10 or £15 m to make.

The skull, cast from a 35-year-old 18th century European male, is coated with 8,601 diamonds, including a large pink diamond worth more than £4m in the centre of its forehead.

Hirst said he was inspired by similarly bejewelled Aztec skulls. While the skull is platinum and the diamonds flawless - and ethically sourced, Hirst stressed - the teeth are real.

"It was very important to put the real teeth back. Like the animals in formaldehyde you have got an actual animal in there. It is not a representation. I wanted it to be real," he told Reuters when the skull was first unveiled to the public.

Hirst, whose works regularly fetch millions of pounds, said he hoped the skull would not be snapped up by a private buyer and taken away from public view.

"It would be sad it it ends up in a vault somewhere that nobody sees. Obviously I would like it to be on display," he said. "If anybody buys it, I would make that part of the conditions".

He rejected suggestions that his works were more a standing joke against the art establishment than real works of art.

But when asked what his next project would be he immediately replied: "Two diamond skeletons shagging - no, just kidding."

Still on

THE recent exhibition at Gloria’s is of paintings by Dr Nicos Angelides and opened on Wednesday, July 4, at 8pm continuing until the 14th of the month.

Net income will be donated to the Red Cross home for Sick Children.

Remarkable work from a very talented artist (and surgeon) No 9 is better than those in any professional exhibition and at a hundredth of the usual price. Maybe next time Dr Angelides should exhibit some appliques. They could be brilliant.

Thalassa: A huge exhibition based on the sea at Gallery k has already opened and willcontinue until July 31. At least 30 entries for this water marathon. Oil, too. Cool off at Gallery k.

Apocalypse has a summer mixed exhibition until September 15.

Last night (Thursday) at Kypriaki Gonia was the opening /installation (with birds) of Iota Ioannides’ magnificent structure which will carry on throughout the month.

New collection from

Cyprus poet

CYPRIOT poet Avraam Constantinou is hard at work at his second selection of poems following the success of his work ‘East of Rome.’

Limassol-born Constantinou, 30, has reecevied an award from Lapithos Municipality for ‘East of Rome,’ and, having studied journalism, has cooperated with several local papers - including ones across the Green Line - and the bi-communal ‘Dialogue.’

Apart from Greek, Constantinou also speaks English and Turkish.

Constantinou’s latest poetic works are inspired by the Epirus area of Greece.

He has also enjoyed cooperation with well-known Greek composer Christos Yiannopoulos.

‘East of Rome,’ which Constantinou describes as an examination of the Hellenic soul, is available from most bookshops.

It was brought out by Power Publishing.

Some excerpts, translated from the original Greek into English, follow: "Quieten down Mrs Despina and do not shed too many tears, in years and time, it will be ours again..."

"The aroma of lemon blossoms fills the air/the nightingales sing/I take handfuls of Paradise’s water to drink."

SOT

POET