PANIYIRI, GREEK FESTIVAL, BRISBANE

Get ready to be lectured by the Greeks Brisbane!
Cultural lecture program announced for Paniyiri 2010

While the Greeks may be famed for their Honey Puffs, the Zorba and the Acropolis, other significant gifts they bequeathed to the modern world included literature and philosophy. Just a snippet of this feast of knowledge will be showcased at the Paniyiri Greek Festival on Saturday May 22 and Sunday May 23, through a series of lectures at The Greek Club, South Brisbane.

This year PANIYIRI will showcase a two day cooking program in the Greek Club headlined by My Kitchen Rules (Channel 7) winners Veronica & Shadi, as well as fellow QLD contestants Tanja and Gen, as well as a full program of dance, music and entertainment in Musgrave Park featuring national stars Effie, Mark Wilson from Channel 7’s Dancing With the Stars, an all-star lineup for the Greek Dancing with the Stars and much more.

The free PANIYIRI Lecture program is an integral component of the Paniyiri Greek Festival. One of the guest presenters and long time supporter, a man whose name is synonymous with the Classics and Ancient History, Professor Bob Milns, said the history of Greece very definitely underpinned western civilizations.

“It's not just the leader figures and Greek scientists who forged advances in history, paving the way for the modern world; but the philosophers, the playwrights and the poets who also set the foundations for much of both what and how we learn and think today. Modern society understands and appreciates this, and we find attendance at these lectures continues to increase as people search for an understanding of the foundation knowledge,” he said.

LECTURE PROGRAM 2010 - The Acropolis Room, The Greek Club, Edmondstone Street, South Brisbane

THURSDAY MAY 20

Time: 7.30pm
The Alex Kondos Memorial Lecture - “Greek War Stories: Migration, War Trauma and Intergenerational War Stories”by Professor Joy Damousi (The University of Melbourne)

Professor Damousi will consider an unexamined aspect of the presence of war within Australia through an analysis of the experiences and memories of Greek immigrants who endured the Second World War and the Greek Civil War. The struggle for survival during wartime occupation of Greece was intense, as was the four years of uninterrupted civil war that followed it. In the years which followed the civil war, mass migration spread throughout the world, as Greeks looked beyond a ravaged Europe to rebuild their lives. The massive postwar migration of Greek immigrants to Australia was one of the largest in Australia’s history to that time. Professor Damousi will explore for the first time how war has shaped family memory of these events among immigrant Australians and consider the intergenerational transmission of war to children who inherited these war stories. (BIO AVAILABLE)

SATURDAY MAY 22, 2010

Time: 2.30pm (repeated on Sunday at 1.30pm)
“Communicating with Gods and Goddesses: The rituals and beliefs of Ancient Greek Religion” by Dr. David Pritchard
(An illustrated lecture) David Pritchard is a cultural historian of ancient Greece. His publications have investigated the evolving shared identities of classical Athenians, cultural and educational participation under the Athenian democracy, the position of Attic women, the costs of festivals and war in classical Athens, and the ancient Olympic Games. David is currently exploring how the open debates and popular culture of the Athenian democracy fed directly into the achievements and costly excesses of the city’s war-making. In addition he is finalizing a sole-authored book on the relationship between sport and war in classical Athens and has been contracted to write another on the cultural and institutional history of the armed forces of Athens during its age of empire.

Time: 4.00pm (repeated on Sunday at 3.00pm)
“The Gods on High Olympus – Just another dysfunctional family” by Emeritus Professor Bob Milns
(An illustrated lecture) The talk will take a light-hearted look at how the gods of ancient Greece lived together on top of Mt Olympus – who they lived with, their intrigues, their homes, their food and drink and how they passed their time.

SUNDAY MAY 23, 2010

Time: 12.00pm
“When Gods and mortals meet” by Emeritus Professor Bob Milns
(An illustrated lecture) The talk will look at the tales of the relations between the Greek gods, goddesses and mortal men and women and the often unhappy outcome of these relations.

Time: 1.30pm
“Communicating with Gods and Goddesses: The rituals and beliefs of Ancient Greek Religion” by Dr. David Pritchard
(Repeat from Saturday at 2.30pm)

Time: 3.00pm
“The Gods on High Olympus – Just another dysfunctional family” by Emeritus Professor Bob Milns
(Repeat from Saturday at 4.00pm)

Time: 4.00pm
“Travelling with the Gods in Greece” by Rebecca Georgiou
Director of Atlas Travel Service West End and Tina Reiken, Teacher at the College of Tourism and Hospitality, Southbank Institute of Technology, this talk will inform the traveller all about the ins and outs of travelling in Greece.

Now facing its 33rd successful year, Paniyiri is a community initiative of the 25,000-strong Greek community of South East Queensland but also the general community in a celebration of fun, food and friendship. The festival is a testament to Greece, proving that it really is a destination where tradition holds firm and where hospitality and living life to the fullest is everything. Funds raised by the Paniyiri Greek Festival are channeled back into the community via the Greek Orthodox Community of St George, Brisbane’s oldest Greek community established in Queensland in the 1920s.

Paniyiri 2010 Fast Facts

Date: Saturday May 22 & Sunday May 23, 2010
Time: From 12pm on Saturday and 10am on Sunday
Location: Musgrave Park & The Greek Club & Convention Centre, Edmondstone St, South Brisbane
Entry: $8 Adults (13+), $2 Aged Pensioners, Children free
Info: www.paniyiri.com or 07 3844 1166