Victoria Taskou was born in Athens in 1979. She graduated from Pallini Music High School and later from the Music Department of the University of Athens. During that time she also studied Theory of European Music, concluding her studies with a diploma in Fugue. She also acquired a diploma in Byzantine Music, after studying with G. Arvanites. Her main instrument is the ud, and her first lessons on the instrument were taught by traditional player N. Paralis on the island of Lesbos. She then continued her studies on the ud with Ross Daly. She also studied Ottoman music theory and practice on the ud in Istanbul.
She has taken part in concerts with a variety of ensembles, performing both traditional and contemporary music, in various places in Greece, as well as in Istanbul, Alexandria, Tel-Aviv and Sicily.
She is interested and involved in composition. She has composed music for the documentary entitled “Olive Bridges” by G. Salames. She also participated in the planning and realization of the Music Workshop for Performance and Composition, which took place on the island of Kythera in 2004 and 2005.
For the last 3 years she has been attending seminars and workshops (composition and orchestration, Turkish and Arab ud, saz, rabab, etc.) which are organized and run by the music workshop “Labyrinth” in Choudetsi, Crete, while at the same time she teaches at the Music High School in Heraklion.
Since 2002 she has been an active member in the improvisation dance group “Ex Niholo”, led and taught by Therese Vandam. Over the last 2 years she has also been participating in a series of contact-improvisation seminars taught by Georgia Petrali.
Nikitas Albanis was born in Iraklion Crete in 1979. He studied Marketing at the University of Sunderland in England and obtained his Msc in Marketing in Aberdeen, Scotland. He has seriously dealt with photography since 2004, and has been involved in solo as well as group photographic projects. He has also participated in group exhibitions, including 2 solo exhibitions in Rhodes (summer 2006 and summer 2007).
In 2004, he successfully completed the course of EFE (Hellenic Photographic Society of Crete) and ever since he has been an active member. In 2008 he was elected in the administrative board of the Photographic Society of Crete, in the position of Secretary General Assistant. In June of the same year he became a member of the club “United Photographers International”.
He has won several awards, the most important of which are: the 1st prize of the Panhellenic photographic competition of Chania in 2005, the award of the youngest author in the 6th International Photographic Competition “Giuliano Carrara” in Italy in 2006, a Gold medal in the Pancretan competition for young artists in Iraklion in 2007, a Silver medal in the 2nd International Salon of Digital Photography in Celje, Slovenia in 2008 as well as a Golden Medal in “The Al-Thani Award for Photography” in Qatar in 2008. He continues selectively to participate successfully in both Hellenic and International photographic competitions.
During September 2008 he worked with the dance group “Fysalida” in the movie “Wrinkles and Dreams” as a stage photographer. In December 2008 he participated in the photo album brought out by the Hellenic Photographic Society of Crete, titled “18 Photographers – International Exhibitors”.
Moreover, photographs of his have been published in magazines and newspapers. Recently he has been writing articles for the Blue Planet – a magazine that deals with issues concerning people, culture and the environment among others.
Furthermore, since youth he has been involved in the filming of amateur small-length movies, as well as with documentary videos which are related to Crete’s tradition. At present, he is producing a medium-length film, titled “One out of three” with a friend of his. The film has to do with the subject of unemployment. They have both written the script and will direct it as well.
Nikitas has a keen interest both in photography and its symbolism as a means of communication and as such he is preparing a project concerned with the consequences of the societal system towards modern people.
Emmanouel Sgouridis was born in Athens. He received his first music lessons in classical guitar in 1992, in Heraklion, Crete. He studied contemporary music theory and musical instrument performance in Thessaloniki, with Fotis Karapetsas and Kostas Magginas, respectively. He has attended masterclasses and seminars on performance, conducting and orchestration. Currently, he studies violoncello with Soren Hansen, piano with Yota Pilafa, advanced music theory with Yiannis Lygerakis and contemporary approaches to music composition with Nikolas Sideris.
Not focused on a single instrument, he performs on cello, violin, piano, flute, clarinet, oboe, trumpet, horn, harmonica and alto saxophone. He plays the horn in the marching band of Ierapetra, where he also teaches woodwind and brass to beginning players.
Since 2008 he practices as a professional composer. His artistic focus is chamber music composition and its potential in being combined with the visual arts. He has composed for films, dance and animation and his works have been presented in Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion-Crete and abroad. He is a resident artistic collaborator/composer for the artistic team Eather and the dance company Fysalida. In 2009 he releases his first CD, titled ‘Choreographed Works’. This CD contains music composed exclusively for use with dance projects.
At the same time he is a licensed psychologist, owning a degree by A.U.Th., and is a private practitioner in Heraklion, Crete.
Stella Melina Vasilaki is a sociologist and anthropologist and also works as a translator.
She was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1981 and grew up in Heraklion, Crete. In 2001 she went back to Montreal to study anthropology and sociology at Concordia University.
After her graduation, she travelled in Asia and taught English to young children in S. Korea.
In 2005, she continued her studies in the Netherlands, where she obtained her Masters degree in Comparative Women Studies in Culture and Politics at the University of Utrecht.
Next, in 2007 she worked for the Non Profit Organization ‘Women on Waves’ as the coordinator of the help line. Since 2006, she lives and works in Heraklion, Crete as a translator.
In 2008 and 2009, she worked as a sociology professor in the Technological Institute of Crete at TEI, in the department of social work and as a social researcher in FORTH, the Foundation of Research and Technology. Since 2009 she has been collaborating with the Fysalida Dance Company, responsible for the company’s film marketing productions and also as a member of Fysalida ‘s research team.
