I Knew It – The Syrtaki is a Butcher’s Dance

After a week of dancing traditional music in Rhodes (at the legendary Blue Lagoon), I came to the conclusion that the syrtaki dance is intended to destroy your knees. Perhaps it was invented by knee surgeons who were on the lookout for new  customers for knee replacements and meniscus-related interventions (isn’t meniscus a Greek word?).

A quick visit to Google provided some surprising answers. Did you think that the syrtaki is an ancient Greek dance? Well, yes and no. The choreography comes straight from the movie Zorba the Greek. That’s the mid sixties – not ancient for me, but for millenials…. Anthony Quinn? Come on, get a life, dude.

But a closer look (at the hyperlinks of course) reveals that the syrtaki is based on the hasapiko, which is a medieval dance of – you guessed it – butchers. And like the capoiera and other dances, it started out as a mock battle dance. Yikes!

Funny, there is a legend that the syrtaki was choreographed because Quinn had knee problems during the filming. I’m wondering what happened after the filming. Could he ever walk again? I sure hope I can.