Irene Maradei

Irene Maradei, Italian-Greek journalist, author, translator, actress,dancer, singer, dance teacher.

Early life

She was born in Rome (Italy) on July 3rd, 1958, by an Italian father (Journalist and author Manlio Maradei [] and a Greek mother (Film critic, author and playwright Rosita Sokou). Since the age of two and a half she lives almost permanently in Greece and since 1984 she has also acquired Greek citizenship.

tudies

*She graduated from the Italian School of Athens in 1976.
*Apart from Italian and Greek (her mothertongues), she is also fluent in French ((Sorbonne 1 and Sorbonne 2) and English (Cambridge Proficiency). She has also studied German (Deutsch als Fremdsprache from Goethe Institut), Spanish and Arabic.
*At the age of eight she started ballet lessons with Yannis Metsis and ten years later she made her debut onstage with a production of "Les Sylphides" with Metsis’ company, the “Athens Experimental Ballet” (it was also to be her last ballet performance!)
*She studied classical singing for ten years, first at the Athens Conservatory with Hero Palli and then at the Athenaeum Conservatory, with Marina Krilovici.
*She studied theatre at the Pelos Katselis School of Dramatic Art and at the Athens Drama School of George Theodosiadis, from which she graduated in June 1980.
*In 1982, she graduated from Rome University in Modern Literature (with a special slant towards English, French and Greek literature, Theatre and Music).
*Her drama school teachers having persuaded her to abandon ballet to lose balletic posture onstage, she explored other dances, such as jazz, tap and flamenco, with Kay Holden.
*She studied oriental dance with Deanna Rhea at the age of 24, and after a gap during her childbearing and childrearing years, after her separation from her Egyptian husband who didn't see kindly to it, she took it up again with a vengeance, studying with various teachers such as Sabah of Athens [http://www.sabah.gr] , Penny Baili, Marina Belba, Nellie Roumelioti, as well as taking part in workshops with teachers from abroad such as Ma Prabhu Erasmia [http://www.danceerasmia.net] , Suha Azar, Chryssanthi Sahar [http://www.chryssanthi.com] and Morocco of New York [http://www.casbahdance.org/THEREALMOROCCO.htm] .
*She took yoga classes with Leda Shantala [http://www.shantala.gr/en/index1.html] (1984-1992 and 2001-2003), filling the gaps with personal regular home practice.
*From 2002 to 2005 she studied toumbeleki (Greek goblet drum) and other percussion (such as finger cymbals or zills) at the Museum of Greek Traditional Instruments, with Maria Noussia.

Career

Actress-singer

She made her theatrical debut in the 1978-79 season in the children’s musical The magician of colours at Dimitris Potamitis' “Theatro Erevnas” (Research Theatre) and, in the summer of 1979, in the musical "Cabiria" (“Sweet Charity”), with the company of Aliki Vouyuklaki. She appeared again at the Research Theatre in the children’s musical "Eleni and her coloured dreams", where she was also choreographer, in Dimitris Potamitis’ own play "Stories of grandpa Aristophanes", in Peter Schaffer's "Equus" (in the role of the psychologist) and in Calderon de la Barca' "Life is a dream" (princess Estrella). In the winter of 1979-80 she sang in the Tipoukeitos musical stage an eclectic repertoire by Hatzidakis (often spelled Hadjidakis, Theodorakis, Kurt Weill, F.G. Lorca, Italian traditional songs and songs from musicals. In July 1982, she was Bastienne in Mozart’s one-act opera "Bastien und Bastienne", performed in the theatre of the Athens Conservatory, in a verse translation made by herself. She has also performed as an actress in The lady with the camelias with the Vouyouklaki company (directed by Mauro Bolognini), with the company of D. Myrat – V. Zoumboulaki, as well as at the Vembo theatre in the musical review "Tou PASOK tous to hava" with Lakis Lazopoulos. Her last theatrical appearance as an actress was in "Gone with the wind" (company M. Aliferi – K. Arzoglou – A. Andonopoulos), directed by Dimitri Potamitis, where she was also responsible for the music and the printed programme texts and graphics. After that, she worked as an assistant to theatre director Vassilis Papavassiliou in the Epochi company, for three productions: "Faith, love, hope" (by Eden von Horvath), "Trovarsi" (“Finding yourself”, by L. Pirandello) and "Summer" (by E. Bond). She also collaborated with the Leda Shantala Dance Theatre [http://www.shantala.gr//x_dancetheatre.html] , in the productions "Garlands", "Cobra", "Shakunthala". Since 1991 she completely left her theatrical career, started her travels to India and, two years later, she gave birth to her first child.

Teacher

Since a very tender age she started giving private lessons in foreign languages, and it was obvious to everybody that teaching was one of her main talents. In 1982-83 and 1983-84 she taught fitness, dance and choreography at the TOURANIM school, aimed at producing touristic animators – an activity which she took up again in 1999 for the DELTA schools. Since 2006 she teaches oriental dance in schools both in Athens and the province.

Journalist – organizer – web designer

From 1980 to 1998 she worked at the "Apogevmatini" newspaper as a critic of film, dance, music and opera. Additionally, she had from time to time regular columns or even whole pages related to environmental issues, nutrition, animals and travel – such as her series of six whole-page articles about India. Since 1993 she is a member of the Athens Daily Press Journalist Union. In the beginnings of 1994 she presented, in the New Channel of Greek TV, her own weekly show about new film released, called "The children of paradise". She edited the texts of the printed programmes of the Leda Shantala Dance Theatre, the leaflets of her Mandiram Centre and later on of the Shantom House of Culture as well as its website [http://www.shantala.gr] . She took care of the public relations and wrote press releases for the Leda Shantala Dance Theatre and for Marietta Rialdi’s Theatrical Company. Since September 2003 she has started another collaboration with Leda Shantala, as responsible of the organization, operation and promotion of Shantom House of Culture. Since 2006 she has started working as a professional web designer.

=Theatrical plays and librettos= She has written three children’s musical plays: "Aladdin’s lamp" (perf. 1981, State theatre of Northern Greece), "To become a clown" (Research Theatre) and "Men and puppets" (Youth Theatrical Scene of Thessaloniki, 1996). In November 2006 was premiered her play called "The monastery of Magdalene" by the Anemona Company in Nicosia (Cyprus).She has written the lyrics, in Italian, for two songs in the CD with music by N. Terzis to be released in the spring of 2008. Again for the Anemona Company she is currently (March 2008) preparing the theatrical version of Yannis Dalianidis’ successful film "Stefania".

Radio

For eight years (1986-1994) she wrote and presented the weekly radio show for the 3rd Programme of the Greek National Radio, "The elf king" – which from a certain point was renamed "Songs for wanderers" – dealing with the history of European art song.

=Translations= She was the official translator for Greece of the comics Asterix, Iznogood and Corto Maltese for the Mammouth Comics Editions. She has also translated novels (such as "Luglio Agosto, moglie mia non ti conosco", and "Ma che cos’è quest’amore" by Pasquale Campanile (Astarti editions), the essay "Il silenzio del corpo" (The silence of the body) by Guido Ceronetti (Roes editions), the books "Puppet Plays", "Pieces droles pour enfants" (Comical plays for children) and "Se reconnaitre par le theatre" (Know yourself through theatre) of the series Theatre for Children (Doudoumis ed.), as well as screenplays (such as the French translation of "The wife of Socrates" by Dimitri Collatos) and theatrical plays: "Love and understanding" by Joe Penhall (Research Theatre,, 1997-98), and, in collaboration with her mother Rosita Sokou, the plays "Harvest" by Manjula Padmanabhan (play competition of the Onassis Foundation, 1997 – the play was awarded the first prize), "Jezabel" by Jean Anouilh (Jenny Roussea company, 1999) The Greek verse translation she had made for Mozart’s "Bastien und Bastienne" was used again when the one-act opera was produced at the Opera Studio and, in the 1995-96 season, in the Children’s Stage of the Greek National Opera. From 1995 to 2005 she was a regular translator and text writer for the book-programme of the annual Athens Festival. She has done the Greek and English translations in the bi-lingual tome dedicated to painter-costume and set designer Nicholas Georgiades as well as for another bilingual book about Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas (ed by the Benaki museum, 2008). She has translated into English Nikos Kasdaglis' novel "Maria perambulates in the water metropolis" (2008) and the new series on freshly discovered ancient tragedies edited by Ilias Malandris. She is currently (2008) working on the English edition of the book "Mario and I".

Book editing-writing

In 2003 she made the composition and editing of Rosita Sokou’s book "Nureyev – as I met him" (Kaktos ed., spring 2003) and in 2004, using texts by Leda Shantala and herself, she compiled a book on the classical Indian dance "Bharata Natyam" – the book is in search of a Greek editor. In December 2005 was released yet another book based on texts by her mother Rosita Sokou, called "Mario and I", on popular Greek tenor Mario Frangoulis (ed. Kastaniotis). The next step is Rosita Sokou’s autobiography, through published articles and unpublished material. Current (2008) projects for her own books are a book on Greek cuisine and one on oriental dance.

Miscellaneous

She has made more than eight long trips to India, which she considers her third homeland – although, as Eden von Horvath said, after the first two or three homelands, you stop understanding the feeling of belonging to one country, and you consider yourself a citizen of the world. She is a Silva Method graduate since 1989. In 1990 she took her 2nd degree Reiki from Elen Sokolow and in 1998 she took Burt Goldman’s hypnotism workshop and became a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists. She was married for a number of years with Egyptian actor-poet Khaled abd el Raouf. She now lives in Athens with her two children, Tancredi-Emilio (1993) and Lavinia-Farida (1997) and the family cats. She is a vegetarian since 1988 and has a huge collection of vegetarian cookbooks from all over the world. She enjoys knitting, crocheting and gardening.

References

External links

* [http://www.maradei.net Official website (under construction in Feb. 2008)]
* [http://www.daughtersofrhea.com/Rhea.htm Rhea of Athens]
* [http://www.sabah.gr Sabah of Athens]