On the first day of the holiday season, November 29, my true love gave to me the illumination of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens! The lights will turn on, the ice rink will open, Stavros Niarchos Park will be bathed in the glow of enchanting displays, and the SNFCC will be filled with the sounds of pipers piping and drummers drumming with swing and jazz from the Loop Quartet and Nina Mazani. On the same day, the Vamvakou Santa School will return with a full day of activities for the whole family, including a bungee trampoline that will get at least ten lords a leaping, carousel rides, roller skating, letters to Santa Claus, crafts, and more, reaching its peak with a concert by Panos Mouzourakis in the village square, followed by a big x-mas party with DJ Nikos G on the decks and certainly upward of nine ladies dancing.
Are those turtle doves, or just NYC pigeons? Again on this first day of the holiday season (it’s a busy one), four calling birds will help fly the SNFCC’s glittering festivities across the Atlantic via live broadcast at Lincoln Center in New York as part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation-Lincoln Center (SNF-LC) Agora Initiative. The broadcast, now an annual tradition, is part of the SNF-LC Agora Initiative, which opened a bridge of cultural and artistic exchange between Athens and New York as part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation’s (SNF) broader efforts to reimagine more inclusive public spaces in collaboration with Lincoln Center. The event will be also streamed online by the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture at UCLA, while the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is helping spread the word to their community.
Put a partridge in your pear tree this holiday season by stepping into the sparkle and joining the celebration!