Cappadocia Agirnas Kasik Karsilamas Larissa 88 - Dance Traditions of the Greeks of Anatolia 4
Until the Exchange of Populations between Greece and Turkey in 1924 the central part of Anatolia, known as Cappadocia, was home to a large number of Greeks; Orthodox Christians, both Greek speaking and Turkish speaking (the Karamanlides). A group of Cappadocian Greeks from the village of Askites, Rhodope County, Thrace took part in the "Congress for Folk Dance Research" in 1988 in the town of Larissa, Thessaly. Most of the inhabitants of Askites are Cappadocian Greeks who settled there from the region of Kayseri / Caesarea, especially the village of Agirnas, which is the birthplace of the great Ottoman architect, Sinan, himself born an Orthodox Christian. Here, led in song by Katina Farasopoulou, these Cappadocian Greeks dance two dances: a "Spoon" dance (Kasik Havasi) in 2/4 and a Karsilama in 9/8. Turkish was the predominant language for song for most Cappadocian Greeks, even those from Greek speaking villages