Andrea Makris
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The co-director of Underbelly Dance since 2001, Andrea Makris is a Melbourne-based professional dancer specialising in Middle Eastern, North African, Turkish and Gulf Region styles.
Andrea’s parents were Greek migrants to Sydney who ensured that Mediterranean music and dance were a part of her everyday life. Since moving to Melbourne in 1999, Andrea has studied, performed and taught dance, while establishing and growing one of Australia’s premier, wholly independent arts organisations, Underbelly.Andrea’s style is authentic and polished yet she is not afraid to fuse contemporary elements into her performance. She was a founding member of the drum’n'bass Belly dance troupe Raqs Remix (2001 – 2003) which performed at the St Kilda Festival and countless clubs and special events about Melbourne. In 2006, Andrea toured (teaching and performing) in the USA with Californian band Solace on the “Sounds of Solace Tour”. She has trained with master choreographers in Egypt, Canada and London and was an invited guest performer with Turkish fusion band Unified Gecko at a concert in Turkey 2005 and at the Adelaide International Arts Festival in 2006.Andrea lived overseas for a year where she held a residency in a Dublin venue for four months in 2007 and performed at the Dublin BalkanFest with Ireland’s favourite gypsy outfit the North Strand Klezmer Band. She soaked up the sounds of North Africa and Eastern Europe in her travels and is now focused on drawing on those inspirations into her teaching and performance repertoire.Andrea has performed as part of the Mix It Up program at the Victorian Arts Centre in support of the PulseHeartBeat Hossam Ramzy concert (2006) and in support of the Gypsy Kings & Queens concert (2009). She has entertained crowds of hundreds at the Victoria Night Market events in 2008 and in 2009 (accompanied by the Melbourne/Istanbul Kolektiv). In 2007 Andrea co-wrote and directed a live music, dance and video production titled ‘Lunar Rhythmicity’ which was performed over two nights at the Victorian Trades Hall.She also performed on the main stage of Federation Square to thousands - in October 2008 for the Opening of the Melbourne International Arts Festival and again in 2009 for the New Year’s Carnivale concert, accompanied by the Melbourne Ska Orchestra.Finally, Andrea has performed with and coordinated the dance component of Uber Lingua’s national events for over a year, including the Sydney International Arts Festival, Darwin Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival and Melbourne based club residencies.