African Dance Body Awareness – Anna Karamitsou

African Dance Workshop

West African dance is a type of dance that liberates whoever participates. My teaching methodology is based on the power of the interconnectedness of dance and rhythm found in West African dances and includes the voice as a third medium of this euphoric state that is created. The sound of percussion evokes our heartbeat and fills us with polyrhythms and earthly pulses. We dance with bare feet and thus activate the body that comes into direct contact with the ground. Sternum mobilization unblocks accumulated emotions resulting in better breathing. Mobilization of the pelvis combined with loose hips restores the sense of strength and balance of the body.
This workshop offers everyone, regardless of knowledge, age or skills, the opportunity to coexist and enjoy life. It promotes awareness and reconnection with our body and gives us a sense of freedom to share and spontaneous joy.
The aim is for the participants to feel safe and to express themselves through the
kinesiology of African dance, to (re)connect with their body and undergo an unforgettable experience as individuals, as well as members of the group.

Level: Open
Ages: 14-65 years-old

Photo credit:

Anna Karamitsou

Founder of the first School of African Dance and Music in Greece, SELI KANOU – West African Dance & Music, in Athens, in 2007.
Co-founder of the group of the same name and of the Dance & Drum Connection (DDC) educational method in collaboration with Antonis Papadopoulos.
Seli Kanou, in the main dialect of Mali, Bambara, means Celebration or Prayer of Love.
Graduate of the State School of Dance (K.S.O.T.). Studies in Psychotherapy through Dance and History of Dance (Sorbonne Paris IV). Certified in the Peter Goss method.
Delegate of the Athens Forum, member of IF-EPFCL (Ecole de Psychanalyse des Forums du Champ Lacanien / School of Psychoanalysis of the Forums of the Lacanian Field).
She has been studying West African dance and music since 1993.
She is considered as the person who introduced West African dance to Greece in 1997.
Since then, she teaches in professional, amateur and university dance schools in Greece, Europe and Africa.
She lived and worked in Europe, based in Paris, for 15 years.
Travelling in Africa is deepening her knowledge of dances and their close connection to music.
Her method is based on body awareness allowing us to (re)discover our sense of movement and expression.
Her main goal is to (re)connect with joy.

Michalis Kiousis

He was born in Athens, in 1990.
From 2009 to 2015 he attended courses on traditional African percussion instruments, djembe and dunduns, with teacher Lefteris Grigoriou, studying the musical tradition of West Africa (musique mandingue). He was a member of the group of the school “Taki’s Percussions” with which he appeared in lives, shows and events. At the same time, he accompanied as a percussionist the music and dance ensembles of Dafni Asimakopoulou and Katerina Karatzi for dance lessons and performances.
From 2016 to 2019 he settled to the island of La Réunion where he collaborated with the African dance school, ADUNA. He accompanied Melissa Bataille’s and Salamata Diallo’s dance classes and educational seminars as a djembe soloist, while appearing in lives and performances of the school’s dance group. He attended and accompanied dance seminars with Khady Saar, Yama Wade, Rachidi Yekini, Doudou Sata, Bouba Sylla, Sory Diabate.
From 2019 until today, he collaborated as a percussionist with Dauda Conteh and the SELI KANOU school of Anna Karamitsou and Antonis Papadopoulos, for African dance lessons, lives and performances, while at the same time accompanyed and attended educational seminars with artists such as Harouna Dembelé, Byshara Shokolate, Mbar Ndiaye, Aminata Touré and others.

Christos Adamidis

He was born in Kastoria in 1987. He has worked in mechanical engineering and the private sector, having his own business. First contact with percussion was in 2013 in the city of Thessaloniki where it marked the beginning of a long journey around rhythm and music. He has studied the musical tradition of West Africa and Latin America. Soon came the first collaborations participating in various bands playing various genres of music such as reggae, funk, ethnic and latin. He participated in the musical ‘One step at a time’ by Maria Stefanou at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall. He played traditional rumba at the Arte Danza dance school. In 2019, he chose the island of Syros as his destination. In Syros he created the group of African percussionists Maisha Percussion which performs various performances. He is a member of the Cyclades Orchestra alongside Nikos Kypourgos. He also plays in musical groups, participates in artistic projects and collaborates with DJs in live performances.