{"id":10459,"date":"2022-08-01T18:34:57","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T17:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/?p=10459"},"modified":"2025-08-11T09:17:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T08:17:54","slug":"dances-of-humanity-and-the-most-beautiful-peninsula-of-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/?p=10459","title":{"rendered":"Dances of humanity, and the most beautiful peninsula of Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

S. Guraziu – Ars Poetica, K 2022 (Comment)<\/em><\/p>\n

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In the last two or three weeks, from time to time (but \u201cfaithfully\u201d), I visited the video-channel of the Greek artist and choreographer Vasilis Petropoulos (on YouTube \u2014 I didn\u2019t know about it before, but lately I \u201cdiscovered\u201d his channel).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if words can\u2019t describe his wonderful work. It comes off as an abstraction, but it\u2019s not excessive to say that I was amazed by the \u201cmiracle\u201d itself, or (at least more concretely) by his tireless work, the volume of his output, his dedication, artistic talent, and choreographic genius.
\nTo \u201cmap\u201d the diversity of dances from around the world and present them as simply and fully as possible in a few 10-minute videos is not easy at all. Individually, it is a huge endeavor, requiring studies, structural planning, and systematic commitment. Almost as if UNESCO itself has not done anything \u201cmore\u201d than this. I\u2019m talking about the \u201conline cartography of the cultural heritage of mankind\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Or, to simplify, their work is essentially similar. Both UNESCO and the young Vasilis are inspired by humanity and humanism, approaching their work with unconditional love\u2014towards culture and towards everything. As if Vasilis \u201cjustifies\u201d his dedication with the motto \u201cdance is the hidden language of the soul.\u201d Being a member of the International Dance Council of UNESCO, his smile (among hundreds of improvisational dances, executed by himself for the videos) definitely has evoked the smiles of millions around the globe.
\nPersonally, I am grateful for his commitment with all my heart and warmth. From a cultural-informative point of view, as far as the beauty and delicacy of dance are concerned, I\u2019ve learned more in the last two weeks from his work than in decades of my life put together.<\/p>\n

As simple as that, his video-channel has likely accumulated millions of visits by now. Not only has Vasilis impressed the audience of the world, but he has also managed to \u201cprove\u201d that the cultural complexity of human \u201ctimeline\u201d is essentially one mosaic alone. It looks clumsy to us, with the \u201cscattered\u201d parts, but in fact, it is compact. The mosaic pieces are just \u201cdancing\u201d\u2014not that there\u2019s anything \u201cchaotic,\u201d on the contrary.<\/p>\n

As if we could not point out either the completeness nor the complexity of the mosaic if we did not elevate our perspectives a little bit. Man once believed that the earth is a flat plate, lying somewhere in the \u201cstellar lawn\u201d of universal infinity. With his work, Vasilis as if \u201cinsists\u201d that the entire cultural development and advancement of peoples is actually the \u201csame frame,\u201d as if everything is one \u201cglobal dance,\u201d a balancing dance of the cultural \u201cmosaic\u201d itself.<\/p>\n

He calls the Balkans \u201cthe most beautiful peninsula of Europe, but at the same time the most complicated and troubled.\u201d For the Balkan peoples, he stated:
\n\u201c\u2026the message (of my videography) is very simple; PEACE! The Balkans is considered the powder keg of Europe, the keg ready to explode at any time. We must throw away this infamous title and work towards a brighter future. Work towards PEACE. Through this video, I hope you can see that all the peoples of the Balkans are so similar to each other. War (verbally, or even worse, in reality) brings nothing at the end. We eat the same things, we have the same mentality, the same instruments, we have similar dances and rhythms, the list of \u2018Balkan similarity\u2019 goes on. We are powerful if we are all united, not divided.\u201d<\/p>\n

I already mentioned above that perhaps we need 2-3 weeks to \u201cgrasp\u201d the beauty of his work. But putting aside the entertainment, the learning alone, which comes back to us as \u201ccompensation,\u201d is worth our time. We don\u2019t finish reading a book of 400-500 pages in one day. The rush after work, obligations, the hustle and bustle of life in general, lately have exhausted our time resources considerably. Of course, the lack of time is always justified. As a \u201csimplified\u201d line, our life itself is no different but a continuity, a timeline of seconds, minutes, days, months (unfortunately, it isn\u2019t endless : )
\n 
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. Guraziu – Ars Poetica, K 2022 (Comment) In the last two or three weeks, from time to time (but \u201cfaithfully\u201d), I visited the video-channel of the Greek artist and choreographer Vasilis Petropoulos (on YouTube \u2014 I didn\u2019t know about… Lexo →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lingua"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrat.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}