Join us Sunday, July 14, for a celebration of Greek culture! CMA is partnering with Astoria’s Greek Cultural Center and the Pontian Society Komninoi of NY to present performances and interactive workshops. Story Time takes place at 11 am featuring books by Greek authors read by Children’s Librarian Kristy Raffensberger of the Hudson Park Library. Eleni Tsarsitalidou and Dimitri Stefanidis of the Pontian Society Komninoi of NY will be sharing traditional dance and music from the shores of the Black Sea at 12 pm and 2 pm.

Workshops inspired by traditional and contemporary arts practices of Greece include:

Graffiti Collages inspired by HOPE in Fine Arts: Young artists are invited to create a collage using the same type of imagery HOPE uses in their own collages, pictures of statues. After finishing your collage, find a place on our Greek column to stick it to! Activate ancient ruins like HOPE with your modern collage.

Collaborative Life Forms inspired by Vaggelis Choursoglou in Fine Arts: In this workshop we will work together to create puppet like “life forms” inspired by Vaggelis Choursoglou! Choursoglou creates paintings of interesting imaginary creatures by mixing and matching! Today young artists can each create a body part for our collaborative life form. Each body part will be fastened together to create a large moveable creature!

Embroidered Contours inspired by Zoi Gaitanidou in the Gallery: We can make our own versions of Zoi’s tapestries by using string to create outlines of people, places or things on pieces of fabric. Once our outline has been stitched into place, we can fill that outline with oil pastel or collage material.

Celebrating Ancient Greek architecture in the Clay Bar: Based on the Parthenon, students will use clay to design their own monument dedicated to an important person in their lives, much like the Parthenon is dedicated to the Goddess Athena.

Stephen Antonakos Workshop in the Media Lab: Inspired by the Greek artist, Stephen Antonakos, make your own eclipsing light animation. Look to prints of Antonakos’ work, then with the help of a CMA Teaching Artist, use light tables, shapes and found objects!

Greek Folk Songs in the Sound Booth: Inspired by the heavy usage of strings in Greek folk music, create your own song using the stringed instruments in the Sound Booth.