2026 ~ Roaming Assembly #33 ~ Ever Given / Ilaeira Leto Agrotou Georgiou, A choreographed identity: exploring the historical position of women through traditional Cypriot dance
Studying traditional dance as a historical source uncovers the history of a people who had no access to record keeping. The Cypriot population of the early-to-mid twentieth century, a mainly agrarian community, had little opportunity to write down their lives for the sake of prosperity. Instead, they were extensively represented by a colonial power eager to rule, and an emerging, local middle-class eager to define themselves. Women especially lacked the resources to represent themselves, and were instead extensively represented and infused with the symbolism of an emerging nation-state, one struggling to define itself against the remnants of the former colonial order and the scars of intercommunal conflict. Traditional dances are not permanent fixtures of a static cultural identity, immune to the changes of times. The transformation of Cypriot women’s dancing reflects ideas of gender and ethnolinguistic identity during Cyprus’s long twentieth century.
