Antipodes at 38: Jorge Menidis on freedom, fun and the art of transforming Lonsdale Street

Since 1987, the Antipodes Festival has been the light on the hill for Greek arts and culture in Victoria and since 2002 for Australia. It refuses to be an “ethnic festival”—a food and costume parade.

Since Jorge Menidis took the reigns in the early 2000s. For 25 years, on and off, Menidis—Director of the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture has made Antipodes into a major Victorian event.

The rulling festival

Melbourne’s traditional Greek precinct, Lonsdale Street, has changed. Once lined with Greek establishments, today only the Greek Centre, Stalactites restaurant and Carras Greek Music remain as living artefacts of another era. Greeks dispersed across Melbourne, creating new hubs in the suburbs.

Yet every year, in late February, the Antipodes Festival reclaims the street’s historic role as the centre of Hellenism in Australia. For a weekend, Antipodes restores the space, infusing it with unmistakable Hellenic spirit.

Street musicians from 2025, Menidis says, that Antipodes’s investment professionalises performers, builds standards, and pride. Photo: Supplied

More than a celebration — though it is that — the festival has launched many artists into the public spotlight. Most recently, Antipodes saw the Xylourithes, the Cretan-Australian musical siblings, parlay their 2024 festival success into a slot at WOMADelaide next week.

Antipodes remains the city’s largest celebration of Hellenic culture — a multi-disciplinary, multi-stage civic event presented by the Greek Community of Melbourne. Menidis also leads the Sydney Comedy Festival, which he saw morph a major international event, and, between 2002 and 2005, ran Carnivale in NSW. There, he took an earnest multicultural festival and reshaped it into a brash, contemporary event with Lebanese Australian rap, flamenco rock, ethnic DJs, and ancient Chinese opera. He subverted the “colourful costumes and food” favoured by authorities. The cool kids took over. Audiences grew, alas powers that be defunded it—too artsy, not “ethnic” enough. It drew criticism from conservatives and progressives alike. Too new, too hip, too sexy. For Menidis, “Antipodes was the template and the model”.

Hundreds of young community dance groups from across Australia come to perform on the Antipodes mainstage. Photo: Supplied

Let’s be transparent

For transparency, I’ve known and worked with Jorge since 2002, when he first took the helm of Antipodes. Even then, he was never “only Antipodes.” His footprint across the live arts sector was shaped by the Antipodes model.

Jorge doesn’t obfuscate, he talks like a gruff rock promoter and or detective who’s seen too much and knows too much. As we talk, you can almost hear his mind running at 300 km/h. “It’s full-on” he “in 12 hours we turn the street,” pointing to the busy Lonsdale and Russell Street intersection, “into a festival drawing more than 150,000 people across a weekend.”

Jorge Menidis, in a black T-shirt, with his crew, before the 2025 Antipodes festival took over the streets. Photo: Supplied

A Melbourne festival—not just a Greek one

Jorge has always been comfortable straddling community, arts, events, tourism, and business.

“Our interest is to engage all of Melbourne—Melburnians, not only Greek Victorians,” he says. “Antipodes is a Melbourne major event.”

That shift—from earnest arts and community celebration to major outward-facing festival—has defined his tenure.

“Yes, four generations of Greek Australians participate—as volunteers, performers, and crew. We have Greek community dance groups, cooking exhibitions, authentic food stalls, Greek liquor and wine, community stalls, and major acts from Greece and here. But the audience is broader—curious, multicultural, often non-Greek.”

Silent Disco, Antipodes 2025: Menidis embraces the experimental — silent discos, Zorba-till-you-drop competitions and all. “The idea of boogying to something only you and your 20 fellow revellers can hear—it just thrills me. Photo: Supplied

“We’re not programming for our parents anymore,” Jorge says. “We’re playing for an audience with a nuanced, sometimes incomplete understanding of the Greek music and arts scene—but far better than many give them credit for.”

There was a time when programming was cautious. “The restrictions of needing success… the fear of not having a crowd—I think we’ve jumped out of that.”

Good art—without being self-conscious

Menidis’s philosophy for curation is based around finding balance. “Art and culture don’t need to be over-polished or over intellectualised—it can be controversial, highly engaging, contemporary and traditional but also fun,” he says.

Konstantina Touni, famous for her connection to the musical heritage of Epirus, will close the festival, on Sunday, March 1. Photo: Facebook

Under his direction, Antipodes has emerged as an authentic, multi-layered street party with high production standards, diverse music, dance, and events.

“We curate it well—our core interest behind all programming is engagement and that has to be tailored and broad”

Engagement requires discipline, he says.

“We transform Lonsdale Street in under 12 hours and to do that we rely on high production standards. The festival may feel spontaneous—it is anything but,” he says.

Young volunteers who help transform Lonsdale St into the largest Greek festival in the Southern Hemisphere. Photo: Supplied

National reach and cultural tourism

Antipodes is no longer a Victorian event only, Menidis says. “We have community dance groups and their committees coming from Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Canberra,” he says. “This is real community-based cultural tourism.”

Antipodes, unlike many Australian ethnic or multicultural festivals, has national pull. Interstate groups travel not simply to perform, but to participate in a benchmark event. “It’s cultural tourism,” he says plainly.

An Antipodes festival sign seen on the street. The Antipodes Festival in Melbourne is the largest celebration of Greek culture in Australia. The two days festival features cultural displays, traditional Greek dances, live music performances, and authentic Greek cuisine from local vendors. Photo: George Chan/AAP via SOPA/Sipa USA

Intergenerational waves

Menidis likes to talk about youth involvement in the festival, which is intense and growing.

“We have 40 young people volunteering every year—95 per cent are third- and fourth generation.”

For Menidis, authenticity is not nostalgia—it is lived, rehearsed, supported, and elevated intangible contemporary Victorian or Australian culture.

“We have hundreds of young people dancing Cretan, Pontian, Peloponnesian, Cypriot dances, yet they are all young modern Australians. Once upon a time, dance groups would come with pre-recorded music. Now we insist on live music wherever possible.”

Menidis says, that Antipodes’s investment professionalises performers, builds standards—and augments pride.

Authentic food stalls are part of the overall experience. Photo: Supplied

2026 highlights: Ioulia Karapataki and Konstantina Touni

One of Greece’s most compelling new voices, Ioulia Karapataki, headlines the Bank of Sydney Main Stage on Saturday, February 28. Fresh from a huge Greek summer and the viral success of “Το Γλέντι (To Glenti)”, Karapataki merges contemporary textures with deep folk roots. Her concerts are communal celebrations—shared, emotional, unguarded.

Konstantina Touni, famous for her connection to the musical heritage of Epirus, will close the festival, on Sunday, March 1, on the Bank of Sydney Stage. Touni’s sappearance on Greece’s The Voice brought her national recognition, audiences and judges were captivated by her interpretations of Epirus classics.

For Menidis, the international artists this year, represent the direction of Antipodes.

Fresh from a huge Greek summer, Karapataki melds contemporary sounds with folk to create something unique. Photo: Supplied

“Two brilliant contempory female artists will be the main international acts this year.”

He says they reflect the “cultural confidence our community and the festival.”

“We bring artists that speak to the now—not just to memory.

Asked if Antipodes would program the musical force, African Greek rapper, Negros tou Moria, he says “it’s inevitable” that rap artists, cross-over, “punk and rock folk from Greece” and multicultural collaborations will increase.

Curation, for Menidis, involves tle creating a “liminal space” for community dance groups, touring professionals, shifting themes like Cretan or neo-folk traditions, as collaborations with Indian, or Arab artists. It mirrors the Melbourne he is programs for.

Fresh from a huge Greek summer and the viral success of “Το Γλέντι (To Glenti)”, Karapataki fuses contemporary textures with deep folk roots. Photo: Instagram

Innovation and play

Menidis, embraces experimentation. Silent discos, Zorba-till-you-drop competitions—he loves it .

“The idea of boogying to something only you and your 20 fellow tourists can hear—it just thrills me,” he laughs.

After nearly 25 years, what motivates him?

“Those debrief meetings every year… all the things we can do better—they motivate you to do another one.”

He gestures down at Lonsdale Street from the Greek Centre.

“We work here; we play here. We look at that street every day and think—’How can we do that better’.”

He pauses. “I think I’ve bought freedom.”

Antipodes under Menidis is a calibrated, high-pressure civic event, serious in structure, joyful in execution, and naturally Greek.