{"id":317,"date":"2025-07-13T05:30:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T02:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/?p=317"},"modified":"2025-08-11T19:05:01","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T16:05:01","slug":"giving-back-the-chemist-educating-greeks-in-the-beauty-of-hip-hop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/2025\/07\/13\/giving-back-the-chemist-educating-greeks-in-the-beauty-of-hip-hop\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Back: The Chemist Educating Greeks in the Beauty of Hip-Hop"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Megan Cameron<\/em><\/p>\n

Maria Mavrogianni was curled up in a fetal position on the ground, waiting for the music to begin. Cars passed through Pangrati in central Athens, trying to catch a glimpse of the spectacle that had drawn the eager crowd to gather outside the neighborhood\u2019s Holy Church of Saint Spyridon on a recent Tuesday evening.<\/span><\/p>\n

To her surprise, Mavrogianni had been asked to do this performance by the Municipality of Athens as a part of the Summer in Athens 2025 festival. The month-long program, which began on June 21st and ends on July 20th, involves over 57 events at more than 41 cultural venues around the city, all free to the public. The mayor of Athens, Haris Doukas, described the festival in a <\/span>recent article<\/span><\/a> from <\/span>iefimerida <\/span><\/i>as \u201cproof that culture can be everywhere, addressed to everyone and even without a ticket.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Having the opportunity to dance at festivals like this means a lot to Mavrogianni, who grew up dancing on the island of Crete. Though she now lives in Paris, where she has dedicated her life to performing and developing her craft, she doesn’t like to describe herself as a professional dancer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to art, it is not the payment that makes it professional,\u201d she said. The primary reason that she chooses to dance, especially in Greece, is because she sees it as \u201ca way of giving back to her country.\u201d When performing, she hopes to \u201cinspire people to appreciate the art of hip-hop\u201d and \u201cget more involved in dance,\u201d overall.<\/span><\/p>\n

For over ten years, Mavrogianni specialized solely in classical ballet and contemporary. Now, at 22 years old, she describes her current style as \u201ccontemporary hip-hop freestyle.\u201d This fusion occurred after she left home to study chemistry in Thessaloniki. This is where she witnessed and participated in her first hip-hop battle, an event where groups and individual dancers compete to improvise the best freestyle combinations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The fast pace of the battles was \u201creally hard in the beginning\u201d for Mavrogianni because she was \u201closing everything\u201d as soon as her performance would start. In spite of this, she kept coming back every week, which she believes has made her a stronger person and dancer.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Greece, \u201cAthens is the best place to be if you want to dance,\u201d Mavrogianni said. \u201cThessaloniki for hip-hop.\u201d There, she has found the street-style community to be much more supportive compared to the competitive and unfriendly battle scenes she has encountered in Paris. Since the community is smaller in Thessaloniki, she says dancers \u201cdon\u2019t have a lot of influence, but it\u2019s easy to grow because people are hugging you in a way.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to participating in festivals, Mavrogianni encourages others to join this unique community by leading workshops for people in Greece to learn about and explore hip-hop styles. She also helps run and organize community hip-hop jams with her friends in Thessaloniki.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every time she dances, Mavrogianni says she evolves. She had done the solo she was set to perform at the Summer in Athens festival hundreds of times, but its current form is completely different from the first version she had created for a university assignment in November of 2024. \u201cIt\u2019s really about what I have inside of me during a specific period of time,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s never the same.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She wore a calf-length dress with green and yellow flowers which made her light pink hair stand out. Mavrogianni only had herself and a small white stool to appease the festival audience\u2014no one, not even her, knew exactly what to expect. This freedom to grow is the beauty of the medium, and something she thinks Greece can benefit from.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Megan Cameron Maria Mavrogianni was curled up in a fetal position on the ground, waiting for the music to begin. Cars passed through Pangrati in central Athens, trying to catch a glimpse of the spectacle that had drawn the eager crowd to gather outside the neighborhood\u2019s Holy Church of Saint Spyridon on a recent … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Giving Back: The Chemist Educating Greeks in the Beauty of Hip-Hop”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5318,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5318"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/jrn350-su25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}