It felt like hearing the first few notes of a great song coming on the radio. The feeling you get when you start tapping the steering wheel, then you turn up the volume just a little and start swaying your head. And before you know it the whole world goes away.
Taking part in my first major TEDxNicosia event felt exactly like that.
I was lucky to begin my TEDx journey, as a volunteer and official blogger for the team, with a bang. Because this year’s theme, Traces, was embraced early on with the successful Wheels and Traces pre-event and a huge interest shown in the 15 speakers and singing and dancing performances that were lined up. It was the reason the Nicosia Municipality was lit red days before the event and that has only ever happened in New York when the Empire State Building was shining bright and red in honour of TED talks in 2015! And how about the dedicated team of volunteers, impressive selection of goodie bag gifts and the robots! The latter was part of a little corner exhibition hosted by The Grammar School’s robotics department, something that brought people as young as five through the doors of the Satiriko Theatre that day.
The event kicked off with a dance performance by the Agion Omoloyiton Cultural Centre. A colourful and beautiful moment of traces of traditions. Decked in traditional Cyprus costumes, over 50 dancers, through the art of dance, told stories of a society that existed many years ago.
Then one by one the speakers took to the stage. The first striking notes to that awesome song.
Kobi Levi, a shoe maker, blew the audience away with images of his extremely imaginative shoe designs, which are actually pieces of art you can wear on your feet. Andreas Lordos intertwined societal issues such as peace, identity and education into an informative talk which almost felt like you were attending a history class. But in a good way.
I listened with fascination to Pembe Mentesh’s story of trying to trace her long-lost aunt with the help of a single photograph and succeeding in doing so because of how much she believes in family connection and DNA. I came close to tears many times when Melissa Hekkers spoke of her time as a volunteer in a Lesvos refugee camp. As a fellow mother I felt her sadness of witnessing families barely living. Antonis Kontouris, who gave his talk in Greek, focused on creativity and embracing failure, something oh-so important on the road to learning, growing and making ideas.
Yorgos Papadopoulos brought a hammer and a piece of laminated glass to the stage not to mention a great quote: “Instead of thinking outside the box, get rid of the box.” John Yorke spoke about politics entertainment and the gift of narrative structure telling the audience that to create a story you need empathy and a common enemy. Spyros Armostis’ talk on Grammar Nazis was priceless and Noutsa Snouts’ Hip Hop performance was such a beautiful shift from the norm. Konstantina Papageorgiou, accompanied by sign language, spoke about how we can bridge the gap between the two very different worlds of those who hear and those who can’t.
An all-day event, especially when you’re volunteering and in your eighth month of pregnancy, can be an energy-zapper. Pff! Hardly in this case! I’m guessing the absolutely phenomenal spread by Get Fresh had a lot to do with it. Yoghurt with granola and jam, fresh organic fruit, homemade cookies, wraps and sandwiches of all sorts ranging from vegan to bacon and chicken options, cold mini snack pots packed with an assortment of lentils, hard boiled eggs, spinach, salmon and chicken were beautifully set up on tables, awaiting a hungry audience who soon realised how spoilt for choice they were.
Besides my enthrallment with the food, I was captivated by three specific speakers who I couldn’t stop talking about later on that weekend.
Paul Iacovou made me laugh out loud with his wit and outstanding ability to tell a fascinating story about the making of the documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers. True stories about this legend and how he faked a heart attack never heard before. 
Peggy Spineli, a fellow writer and mama, hit all the right notes when she walked on stage to talk about motherhood and technology, two topics that shouldn’t really have anything in common but in fact they do. Many mothers, all over the world, are able to continue working and contributing, solely through technology. As a blogger, I am one of them. And despite society’s lack of understanding, Peggy wisely noted that we can all help women achieve a lot by being part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Memnia Theodorou’s talk was an absolute and utter inspiration to all; to those who like Memnia have lost loved ones and those who feel lost. I was blown away by her brave decision to sail from London to Sydney without any experience, by her declaration that she had to lose all the luxuries of the modern world to find herself again. I couldn’t help but give her a standing ovation for so courageously telling the story of how she lost her sister to cancer, admitting defeat only to come through as a fighter in the end.
There’s a bittersweet moment that comes when the last notes of the song pound through the speakers. You’ll soon come down from the high you’ve been on but the elevation lingers for a while longer. At TEDxNicosia that day Sarah Fenwick offered those last few sweet notes with her mesmerising voice and an improvised Jazz Traces theme weaved around favourites such as Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
And then the song was over… But traces were left behind.
Words by Eleni Antoniou
Photos by Emma Louise Charalambous and Andri Josef
