CULTURE

Meat, satire, songs

An all-out feast of grilled meat, flowing wine and traditional tunes from all over Greece will mark the middle of the Carnival season at the City of Athens’s Tsiknopempti (loosely translated as «Smoky Thursday»). This day of gluttony and belly-worship will begin at noon today at Kotzia Square when the Delalidon theatrical troupe will give a fun-filled performance that they will then perform at various points around the city center through the duration of the day (Athinas, Evrypidou, Aeolou, Kapnikarea, Ermou, Syntagma, Panepistimiou, Valaoritou, Amerikis and Korai). Festivities will then move to Varvakeios Square at 1 p.m., where Domna Samiou, one of the country’s most important singers and propagator of traditional Greek songs with over 50 years’ expertise in the field, will be joined by musicians, a chorus and dancers for a program of racy seasonal airs. In the evening, at 7.30 p.m., bouzouki player Babis Tsertos and singer Nadia Karayianni will perform passionate rebetika tunes and uplifting laika (or popular dances), while in Plaka’s main square, the Momogeroi, a group of 25 male performers, will don Carnival costumes to present satyrical dance, song and theater skits. Throughout the duration of the city’s festivities, which run to February 18, Syntagma Square will serve as the hub of events, with the City of Athens holding a variety of events daily and setting up activities stands.

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