#elladamou

Hey! So if there’s one dance, it’s Kalamatianos. Most popular songs these days are written for it, every glendi will play like an hour of it at minimum, every region will have some variation of it.

Here are some great tutorial videos: ONE | TWO | THREE

For popular Kalamatianos songs: ONE | TWO | THREE

In terms of party dances, the popular ones you’ll see in the US are:

Pentozali (from Crete) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Ikariotikos (from Ikaria) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Zembekiko (from Asia Minor I believe; this one is freestyle, so take the lessons with a grain of salt) - ONE | TWO | THREE

The other one I’m going to throw in is Syrtaki/Zorba. I personally hate it, but it’s famous so what can you do.

Regionally, there are a few that are the hallmarks:

Syrtos/Ballos (from the islands; while the same base step is the same, there will be stylistic differences on each island; syrtos is in a line and ballos is the same step but in couples) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Zonaradikos (from Thrace in northeastern Greece) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Kritikos/Roditikos (you would think it’s from Crete, but actually it’s the variant of Haniotikos/Cretan Syrtos that’s found on Rhodes) - ONE | TWO | THREE

I’ll go ahead and link Haniotikos too (from Crete) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Sousta (from the Dodecanese and Cyclades islands) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Kotsari (from Pontos, which is now present-day Turkey) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Gaida (from Macedonia in northcentral Greece) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Tsamikos (from central Greece; Thessaly and the Pelopponese) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Sta Tria (from Epirus in northwestern Greece) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Once you get into each region or island, it gets more specific by village as well.

Also, if you’re trying to learn from videos like these, never watch the leader. They will always be doing tricks. Watch the third or fourth person, or watch one of the women.