The Minoan Ritual was a performance that would have done very well wherever in the world we went. That was why when Minotis [Alexis Minotis, famous Greek actor and producer] saw it, he said it should travel to Athens... and abroad.
To present the whole spectacle, Boyiatzidou, our dance teacher, worked extremely hard. She spent a year in the archaeological museum with Nikos Platonas and Stylianos Alexiou, studying lithographs, wall paintings, statues and anything that might help her to enter into the spirit of the Minoans. She even tried to study the way they thought, not just how they acted.
The performance was held in 1957 in Heraklion, on the Ergotelis football ground, and was attended by the whole town. The performance lasted one and a half hours. In that time 76 girls appeared group by group, each performing entirely different movements. The show also included a procession, the offering of the sacred veil, the bloodless and blood sacrifice, offerings to the gods and sacred dances. The sacred dancers in that era danced until they were worn out. The demands of the performance were such that it had to be held on the Ergotelis football ground, because there was no suitable stage to put it on. Everyone in Heraklion attended it; very few people missed it. The Ergotelis ground was jam-packed full. It was a wonderful cultural performance. The following year we received an invitation to put it on in Thessaloniki. There was such enthusiasm that although we were planning to put on one performance, we did a second one when the people in Thessaloniki asked us to.
