Festival of the Muses: On the Sacred Way
Dates: Friday, August 22 – Saturday, August 23, 2025
Join us for a two-day gathering that celebrates the living spirit of the ancient Delphic Games through a contemporary lens—where myth breathes, music resounds, and the Muses rise anew. The Center for Hellenic Studies proudly collaborates with the Isadora Duncan International Institute, the Ecumenical Delphic Union, and the Committee for the Reinstatement of the Delphic Games to bring this Festival to life as it marks a vital step in the international movement to restore these sacred traditions globally. This event is free to the public and will culminate in a festive performance at 7:00pm. EST on Saturday, August 23.
Through lectures, performances, workshops, and discussions, participants engage with ancient Greek culture in vibrant, modern forms—poetry, dance, theater, sport, song, and ritual—culminating thematically in an experiential procession along the “Sacred Way.”
This “Delphic Preview” serves as a practicum for the upcoming full five-day Festival for the Reinstatement of the Delphic Games, to be held in Delphi, Greece, in Summer 2027, and extends into the Garden of the Muses, a growing archive of creative offerings in word, sound, and movement.
Scholars, artists, and the public are warmly invited to attend. We welcome proposals from academics and enthusiasts alike—whether presentations, performances, or workshops—on themes relating to Delphi, the Delphic Games, Apollo, the Muses, mythology, and their unique ties to the Delphic tradition in sport, art, music, dance, poetry, theater, and song.
Presented by
Panos Kaltsis, Founder and President, Ecumenical Delphic Union
Zoie Lafis, Festival Co-Chair, Executive Director, Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies
Jeanne Bresciani, Festival Founding Chair, Artistic Director, Isadora Duncan International Institute
with Committee Members
Rosemary Cooper, Isadora Duncan International Institute
Mary DiSanto-Rose, Skidmore College
Cynthia Word, Word Dance Theater
About the Keynote Speaker
Paris (Paraskevas) Katsivelos is a Greek Actor, Director, and Professor of the Dramatic Arts. He comes from the island of Thassos, Greece. He studied Acting, Directing, Stage Design – Costume design, Monody – Melodramatics, Kinesiology – Choreography, and Scenic Art. For more than four decades, he has taught Acting, Education of Speech, Improvisation, Specialized Dramatic Art Workshops, Special Dramatic Art Retraining Seminars for professional Actors, in Higher Schools of Dramatic Art, Theatrical Workshops, and at Universities in Greece and abroad. He is a tenured professor at the European Institute of Communication (ECI), Austrian University D.U.K. and the NTUA (National Technical University of Athens), at the master’s program “Quality Journalism and New Technologies,” where he teaches his own section “Education of Quality Communication – Dramatics for Communicators.”
He has played characteristic roles in twenty-nine theatrical and forty-three TV productions. He has participated in four motion pictures and several serial or one-off radio shows. He has been a permanent Announcer, Radio and Music Editor of the radio broadcasts of the Ministry of Rural Development for thirty years. He is an Honorary Doctor of the Academy of Education and Sciences of Ukraine and a Doctor of Practical Philosophy and Philosophy of Sciences W.PH.F. University (USE, UNO). He is the Chairman and VP of the Organising Committee of the World Philosophical Forum, Responsible for the Development of Culture and Intercultural Dialogue and a permanent speaker at it. For the World Philosophical Forum, he is also: World Ambassador of Peace, World Ambassador of Good and Light, Ecumenical Ambassador of Intellect and Arts, Citizen of the World.
Read about the prior Festival of the Muses that took place at the Center in June of 2020.