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Anna Dimitratou

ANNA DIMITRATOU

Actress, Bollywood and Oriental dances instructor, pilates trainer, founder and artistic director of “Artistic Studio Oriental Expression”, “1st Bollywood Academy in Greece” and “Oriental Expression Awards”.

She is also the organizer and artistic director of “Bollywood and Multicultural Dance Festival”

Anna Dimitratou was born in Athens, Greece. She got involved in theater since she was 15 and finished her Bachelor’s in “Iasmos Drama School” (2000 – 2003).

• She has worked as an actress for the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Kalamata and Roumelis, Ancient theater of Delphi, at the “Aggelon Vima” theater and many other theaters in Athens.

Also in daily soap for the Greek TV channels and independent short films. She got involved with physical theater for many years and attended various workshops with teachers like, Tapa Sudana, Kostas Filippoglou, Lilo Baur, Marcello Magni, Esther Gonzalez and John Wright among others.

As a part of a theatre project (Bells – 2005) Anna had to learn middle-eastern and Eastern dance forms where she was introduced to Oriental and Indian Classical dances like Bharatnatyam, Kathak and also Bollywood.

She studied folklore oriental dances like Saidi, Khalijee, Raqs Sharki, Balladi, Nubian, Ghawazee, Shaaby and modern forms of oriental dance including Tribal Fusion (American Tribal System) in Cairo, Egypt (Nile group festival) under teachers like Mahmoud Reda, Osama Emam, Lubna Emam and Tito Seif among others.

In 2007, she became a member of the International Dance council, CID (UNESCO) and established Artistic Studio Oriental Expression in Athens, Greece, where she started teaching Oriental dance forms and performing in Greece, Turkey, Hungary and Egypt.

She participated in various competitions in Greece and Egypt and her group won the First prize at the International Festival “The Nile Group Oriental Dance Competition” held in Cairo, 2009.

During this period, she also obtained a diploma in Pilates (BASI Pilates) and started incorporating it in her work. She developed her own training method that combines Pilates with oriental dance, called “Orientalates”.

She started learning Bollywood through You tube until she invited an Indian artist Dilara Adim in Greece (2009). She became really fond of Indian dance and culture and introduced Bharatnatyam in her school in 2009 and started training herself in Bharatanatyam.

Later, she also started learning Kathak by attending seminars in Spain, Greece and India (Jaipur and Varanasi). During the next few years, she trained herself and she introduced Bollywood and Indian dance forms through her school in Greece.

In January 2013, Anna established the “1st Bollywood Dance Academy Greece”. Anna worked with Indian artists like Ravi Shankar Mishra, Anasua Majumdar, Rakesh Sai Babu, Ritchie Burton, Sunny Singh and George Jacob among others.

She formed a professional Bollywood team and has been presenting Bollywood dance since 2013 in various festivals and on famous Greek TV shows and has featured in People and Lifo magazines.

The same year she organized the 1st Bollywood and Multicultural Festival in Greece which was one of a kind in Europe, showcasing different cultures , but primarily Indian culture and traditional dance forms.

Her efforts were recognized and the festival was supported by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, CID(UNESCO), Indian Embassy and Greek National Tourism Organisation. And this year ICCR co-operated with the team to make the festival a big success.

• In September of 2013 she accepted the proposition from the great director Lilo Baur and performed at the opera “Lakme”(Lakshmi) composed by Leo Delibes which was performed at Opera De Lausanne, where she trained the dancers to Indian and Middle Eastern dances. She also participated in the following shows of “Lakme” in January 2014 at Opera Comique of Paris.

In July 2015, at the 3rd Bollywood and Multicultural festival she along with Bollywood choreographer George Jacob showcased the 1st Bollywood Musical in Greece, “India- the Land of Love”.

August-September 2015 she made her dream come true. Travelled around India and taught her Favorite dance forms, Bollywood and Bellydance in Universities, Colleges and dance schools-groups (Delhi, Odisha, Bangalore, Pune, Agra).

In 2016, another Institution is being set up to organize the Spring International Bellydance Competition, the “Oriental Expression Awards “. This International Competition is held in Spring each year with invited stars, judges and dancers of Oriental dances. Anna is the President of Juges Panel.

In the same year, she traveled along with her Indian partner, Sumon Rudra, to France, invited by the Bolly Deewani Group in Paris to teach Bollywood and Bellydance.

Anna Dimitratou and her team organize – every year – three big projects: a) The Great Bollywood Dance Event – Seminars and Show (December), b) The “Spring International Bellydance Competition”, c) The International Bollywood Dance Competition and of course d) the “Bollywood and Multicultural Dance Festival” in Athens – Greece.

Anna continues her Journey as a student, teacher and performer in the field of Theatre, Oriental dances and Indian dance forms, and continues to travel, teaching and performing in many cities in Greece and Abroad.