Born in Thiva, Greece, Tony Petroulias started dancing at the age of three at family gatherings and local feast day celebrations. He and his family immigrated to San Diego in 1969, where they preserved and celebrated the customs, language and folk dances of Greece. The family returned to Greece in 1974, and Tony joined the Lykeion Ellinidon of Thiva dance troupe, which taught the dances of all regions of Greece. He danced with the Lykeion for 5 years.

In addition to dance troupe performances, Tony danced at innumerable feasts and celebrations throughout the villages of central Greece and the island of Evia, learning the local dance history and dance styles of the various regions and villages.

Returning to San Diego in 1979, Tony began dancing, performing and teaching Greek folk dance at St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church, where he has continued to teach and direct for 25 years.

Tony has participated for many years in the acclaimed Greek Orthodox Folk Dance Festival -- a national competition with over 100 dance groups -- as dancer, choreographer, costume director and dance director. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the coveted Sweepstakes Award, which recognizes the highest level of skill and achievement.

Tony has returned to Greece every summer to research and document the dances, music and traditions of the regions of Epirus, Sterea Ellada, Thessaly, Macedonia, Crete, and the Cyclades and Dodekanisa Island groups.

Anna Mavrou Bouziani is from the island of Kalymnos in the Dodecanese Islands. She and her husband are pharmacists and have a drug store in Kalamata, but, she says, "My heart is in dancing Greek folk dances."

She has been active in the Lykeion ton Ellinidon since her childhood in Kalymnos, where the focus is on Asia Minor and Kalymnian dances. In Kalamata, she specializes in the mainland dances of Greece. She has performed in many major cities in Europe.

Presently appointed to the board of directors of the Lykeion, she coordinates the folk singing group and is assistant director of all dance groups. "In the last four years, my husband Pavlos has also become a member of the Lykeion and has joined me in many performances."

Not only is she blessed with a fine singing voice like her mother, Kalliopi "Popi" Mavrou, who is president of the Lykeion ton Ellinidon of Kalymnos, Anna has a sensitivity to traditional styling. Her vocals can be heard on the CD, "Ellada Pou Den Xerete," (The Greece You Don't Know.)

Yannis Konstantinou is very well-known as a teacher of Greek Macedonian dance and culture throughout Greece and Europe and among those North Americans who have had the good fortune to experience the dance seminars he organizes annually in Agios Germanos, overlooking Lake Prespa. Yannis' passion for traditional music and dance began in his childhood, dancing with his family in his parents' villages of Alona and Akrites in the Florina region of Greece. In 1994, he produced an LP, The Musical Tradition of Florina in collaboration with the Center of Greek Tradition.

Photo by Joan Friedberg

In addition to the annual Seminar on Greek Traditional Dance founded in 1986 with his father, the renowned dancer Simos Konstantinou, in 2002 Yannis began organizing a Balkan Seminar in Prespes, where he and other dance specialists from neighboring Balkan countries present dances, music and folklore of various geographical areas and Balkan ethnic groups.

Dennis Boxell has been a pioneer in the research and teaching of Greek and Balkan dance. He displays a unique ability to impart style, nuance, and feeling and to reach every level of student from beginner to advanced. For more than 35 years, he has contributed richly to the Balkan folk dance and music scene in the U.S. through his field research, excellent workshops, and involvement with performing ensembles, including the acclaimed Koleda Ensemble Seattle.

Mr. Boxell has successfully brought dances from the village to the stage, and he has introduced many dances in the U.S. previously unknown outside of their own regions. He pioneered the production of recordings in the 1960s that became widely disseminated and popular among U.S. folkdancers. He has directed and presented numerous youth dance groups from Seattle and Los Angeles at the annual Greek Orthodox Youth Folk Dance Festival, and groups under his direction have won the coveted Sweepstakes award on several occasions.

Mr. Boxell first conducted dance research in Greek Macedonia in the early 1960s. In 1993, he organized a research dance tour to Greece in conjunction with Yiannis Prantsides, director of the Lyceum, and had the unique opportunity to revisit one of the same villages he had first been to nearly 30 years earlier and observe how the dances had evolved during that time period.

Joe Kaloyanides Graziosi is one of the most respected authorities on Greek dance in the U.S. His expertise can best be summed up this way: Whenever no one seems to know the answer to a question about Greek dance, the consensus is often, "Let's ask Joe."

His own roots derive, on his mother's side, from Eastern Thrace. Joe has devoted many years to conducting both secondary and primary field research on regional dances, both in Greece and among Greek communities in the U.S. He has collected an exhaustive library of scholarly research as well as a comprehensive video library and musical archive, all of which serve his seemingly endless font of knowledge on Greece dance. He has also produced numerous anthology CDs of dances from recorded sources not widely available in the U.S., which he makes available to his classes.

Joe has taught workshops around the world for community groups and at major folk dance camps. He has been a frequent guest teacher at the East European Folklife Center music and dance camps. He was director of the Greek Music Tour sponsored by the NEA and the Ethnic Folk Arts Center, New York, in 1982. He has been a much sought-after resource by dance group directors and has served as judge and advisor for the annual West Coast Greek Orthodox Folk Dance Festival since 1984. He also was co-founder and co-director of the annual World Music and Dance Camp in Cape Cod.

Yvonne M. Hunt has more than 20 years experience researching and teaching the ethnic dances of Greece and the Balkans. She directed two performing groups in the Seattle area, Panagyri and Pravo, and conducted Greek dance workshops throughout the U.S., Greece, Canada, France, Italy, Norway, Holland, and Finland. She has lectured and written numerous articles on the Gypsies of Greece. Her book, Traditional Dance in Greek Culture, was published in English in 1996 by the Center for Asia Minor Studies in Athens. A Greek edition is soon to be released in Greece.

Ms. Hunt lived in Greece from 1979 to 1993, teaching Greek dance, lecturing at universities and in other venues, such as the Dora Stratou Theater, and serving on many cultural committees. She continues her field research with twice-yearly trips to Greece and also organizes dance seminars there every summer. In 1998 she sponsored and organized a widely successful series of dance workshops in conjunction with a U.S. tour of the Karakostas Ensemble , a ziyia ensemble (zournades and daouli) from Serres in Northern Greek Macedonia.

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