Cyprus
Cypriots are very proud of their cultural heritage, which stretches back more than 9000 years. However, you'll probably find that Cyprus today is more concerned with the events of the last 20 years than those of a millennium ago. The north of the island is busy re-creating itself in the image of Turkey, changing names to Turkish and embracing the life and culture of its northern neighbor. The Republic is also trying to create an independent identity, and many places in the Republic have recently been renamed as well.
Art
Whatever the present-day situation may be, Cyprus is littered with reminders of the island's history.
Relics from every era - Greek temples, Roman mosaics and 15th-century frescoes - influence the artists of today. Many villages specialize in a particular art form, and as you travel around Cyprus you'll see pottery, silver and copperware, basket weaving, tapestry and Lefkara's famous lacework.
Religion
Like everything else in Cyprus, religion is split along the Green Line. The northerners are mostly Sunni Muslim, the southerners Greek Orthodox.
Food
Food, too, reflects the divide: in the North you'll find mostly Turkish cuisine; in the Republic, Greek. But wherever you are in Cyprus, you'll come across kleftiko (oven-baked lamb) and mezedes (dips, salads and other appetisers). Cyprus is also famous for its fruit, which the government protects with a ban on imported products. You'll find strawberries, stone fruit, melons, prickly pear, citrus and grapes.
Dance
Cypriot men used to dance mostly during wedding festivities and at various junkets on high days and holidays, but also in coffee-houses in the evenings, on threshing-floors, and wherever men gathered together. Social convention restricted occasions when women danced mainly to weddings.
In the period we are considering, roughly from 1910 to the seventies, the basic dance of both men and women was the "kartchilamas" performed by a confronted pair of dancers. The "kartchilamas" consists of a series of dances that vary slightly according to the performers, the locality, or the era. These dances are essentially parts of a whole, or suite, the parts being known as the "kartchilamas" or "first", "second", "third", "fourth", and "fifth" or "balos", rounded off by other dances such as the "syrtos", "zeipekkikos", and "mandra". A feast would usually end with one of the pan-Hellenic dances, the "kalamatianos", a circle-dance in which all might join.
Cypriot dances are mainly of the type performed by a confronted pair, invariably two men or two women, or men's solo dances displaying virtuosity and often performed with a hand-held object, either a sickle, knife, sieve, or tumbler. In their steps and general characteristics - such as the movement of the body and limbs - they have features in common with dances of the historic Greek island area (the Asia Minor seaboard, Aegean islands and cities, and the Ionian isles). Apart from these common features, Cypriot dances are distinguished by steps peculiar to certain localities, such as stamping in one spot with the feet, crossed alternately in front of each other, in the "second" and particularly the "third" ""kartchilamas"" and in the "syrtos" for men. Improvisation is another characteristic of Cypriot dances and may be attributed to their being performed by only two people and so to an overriding sense of comparison and, by extension, of competition. But it is to be noted that improvisation and the freedom of the dancer to do his own thing are constrained by the community's severe strictures upon any excesses. Indeed, the more inward-looking the community, the more rigorous the restraints.National Anthem
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