http://www.umich.edu/~hellas/

Update from the Hellenic Student Association
by Konstantinos Ghirtis

The Hellenic Student Association (HSA) aims to present Hellenic (Greek) culture on campus. The HSA participates proactively in the multicultural exchange that takes place at the University of Michigan, enhancing at the same time the educational experience of students outside class.

2002-2003 has been another fruitful year, which brought HSA to new frontiers, especially regarding the outreach, diversity, scale and impact of the events that were planned.

In what has now become an annual tradition, Hellenic Cultural Month took place in Fall 2002. This year’s Cultural Month centered on Greek Music from past to present. Guest lecturers as prominent as Gail Holst, scholar and biographer of famous Greek composer Mikos Theodorakis’s biographer, and Diane Touliatos, Professor of Byzantine Music, came from Cornell and the University of Missouri-St. Louis to speak about different aspects of Greek music while live performers engaged our guests. A Byzantine Choir from Pittsburg came and gave a performance as live examples of Byzantine music, while a live Rembetiki Music performed at the Firefly Club with over 200 people attending. In addition Paul Vondiziano, a gifted solo guitarist, performed live on his guitar representative Theodorakis masterpieces.

HSA also made it to the Tour of the Middle East, showcasing the influence of Hellenism on the Middle East and the achievements of the Hellenistic Era. HSA participated in the Balkan Film Festival, which was planned by the Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies, with the movie “Ulysses’ Gaze” of Theodore Aggelopoulos. Another nice collaboration was the showing of two films on the legend of Medea, which served as an introduction to the University Musical Society Abbey Theater’s “Medea” performance. Finally, HSA organized a dance troupe to perform traditional Greek folk dances at this year’s Encompass Show.

During the Winter semester, HSA set up a series of four lectures on the Byzantine era. These were informative and entertaining talks aimed at raising awareness about the importance of the Byzantine Empire’s role in bridging Ancient Greece and Rome to the Middle Ages, its unsung influence on the Renaissance and how this multiethnic state survived over a one thousand year period, outliving most of its numerous invaders. The choice of the lecture topics showed that the Byzantine Empire was much more than a theocratic, immobile society, as it sometimes perceived.

Finally we participated with our very own float in the Greek Independence Day celebrations in downtown Detroit and we concluded the term with another evening of live music and dancing. In a moment of recognition for all of HSA, The University of Michigan awarded Konstantinos Ghirtis (HSA president 2002) with the very prestigious 2003 Outstanding Leadership Award.

The events sponsored by HSA serve as a wonderfully vivid and entertaining introduction to Greek culture on campus. Most of our events are free of charge. The success of the cultural and social events means that there is now a tradition of placing HSA and Hellenism in the spotlight!