This is an especially designed cultural/educational trip addressed to people interested in discovering the spirit and soul of womanhood, as it was celebrated in Ancient Greek culture. The trip is composed of visits to ancient sites dedicated to the ritual worship of the feminine principle, workshops which combine exercise in choral reading, dance and movement and on-site tutorials. Participants will discover the expression of feminine principle in ancient Greek culture and everyday life.

In ancient Greece each female goddess possessed a separate identity specific in characteristics through which a particular quality of the feminine nature could be expressed and revered. Arts of this era reflects an abundance of pictorial reference to the maturation of womanhood through menstruation, the worship of the hymen, and a variety of idols expressing the protective nature of worship toward all phases of a woman’s sexual and reproductive cycle. A woman’s transition to maturity was perceived as a complex and important process of transformation through which she takes her place as a respected member of society.

This religious archetypal reverence of the female carried over into dramatic literature as well as epic and lyric poetry in an attempt to capture the feminine voice and experience in all of its complexity. Heroines such as Medea, Hecuba, Andromache, Cassandra, Antigone, Phaedra, Clytemnestra, Electra an Lysistrata illustrate the strength of the feminine logos, beautifully, powerfully, stunningly expressed by the greatest dramatic poets of the western world.

Through the power of these voices participants will become acquainted with the richness of the ever changing image of womanhood from ancient times to the contemporary world.