The Modern Greek Program and West European Studies at Indiana University Bloomington has the pleasure to host Rebetiki Istoria, one of Athens' finest traditional rebetika bands, at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Performing Arts Center Auditorium on Monday, April 11, at 7:00 p.m.
Rebetika, for the uninitiated, is an urban musical form that is roughly analogous to the blues in American culture. This syncretic music grew out of Greece’s population exchanges with Turkey in the 1920s and documents the experiences of the 1.3 million Orthodox inhabitants of Asia Minor who were forced to leave their homelands and migrate to Greece. It is an immensely passionate musical genre that speaks the international language of 20th-century popular song with a Greek twist: talking about love and romance, migration and dispossession, the struggle to survive in challenging economic conditions, the temptations of drugs and alcohol, and the longing for a better world.
What makes the Rembetiki Istoria particularly special is that the audience is able to experience this amazing music across the boundaries of language and culture. The band is accompanied by Yona Stamatis, a doctoral candidate in Ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan, who, in addition to playing with the band, will provide an opening introduction. Additionally, song lyrics are translated into English so non-Greek speakers can better understand the performance.
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