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Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari grew up in a Greek community in Canada watching elders dance at weddings and recording their moves. When she moved to Minnesota and saw that there were no major Greek folk dance troupes, she decided to start her own.
Nearly 30 years later, the group is still traveling around Minnesota, performing at festivals, weddings, community events and more.
The dancers learn authentic traditional Greek folk dances from across the region, complete with traditional costumes and music. Panoskaltsis-Mortari estimates she has 250 costumes stored in her home for performances.
“I really want to show what is authentic, authentic Greek, so that you would feel like, OK, this is something that I would see in Greece … if I went to a village and watched people dance there,” said the Woodbury resident.
“It always pained me … to see how Greek dancing has been morphed over time and morphed into something that if you were to present it in Greece, people wouldn't even recognize what you were doing … so I just wanted to bring back that authenticity.”
Elaine Koutsoukos learned Greek dance for her wedding over two decades ago. She enjoyed it so much she joined the Greek Dancers of Minnesota, and she hasn’t stopped dancing since. When she gave birth to her son, she started taking him to practices, and he performed with the Greek Dancers of Minnesota too.
“It felt great, it was something we had a common interest in,” she said. “We’ve become a family, and that keeps us going. So we’ve got extended family besides our own personal family. And everybody that joins in becomes part of the family.”
The group has no auditions and anyone is allowed to join, regardless of prior experience or cultural background. They practice every Sunday afternoon at the St. George Greek Orthodox Church in St. Paul. They are next scheduled to appear at the Rochester Greek Fest from Aug. 23-24.
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