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I have never seen parishioners in the GOC-AB Kallinikos parishes do any Greek dancing or hold a parish Greek festival where Greek dancing is done out under the stars at night, so is traditional Greek or ethnic dancing forbidden in the TOCs?
In World Orthodoxy, I know that Antiochian and Greek Orthodox Priests and Deacons have been instructed by their Bishops that they should not go to dance clubs or participate in ethnic dancing with parishioners. Although the clergy of the local Greek parish do start the parish festivities at the Anastasi dinner by dancing with the altar servers, these clergy members leave shortly after the dinner and dessert have been served while the parishioners remain until dawn to celebrate the Resurrection.
The question is forbidden to whom? Normally clergy should not dance at all, and even for laymen dancing is not recommended and definitely forbidden in some occasions like weddings (see canons and the homily of Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorithe in Christian morality on the subject) and to celebrate religious feast (wedding by the way is a religious feast). Normally clergy should leave the wedding when dancing begin. Moreover the church is there for deification and teaching, which are the highest priorities (all the more since the degree of ignorance of orthodox is quite high), and a whole night dedicated to prayer with an real agripny would be more interesting than a dancing, but strangely, you'll get less people...
An agrypny (agrypnie in French) is a reall all-night vigil, not like the shortened all-night vigil that last 2-3 hours, but the real one starting with vespers around 8 PM and ending the day after with liturgy around 4AM-6AM. I went at one in 2005 for Saint Sabbas, in the "Russian" cathedral Saint Alexander Nevsky in 2004 I think, and it was a really great litugical moment. All the psalms of the cathisms are read, the life of the saint is also read in its entirety etc. You also eat bread and drink wine during it after the vespers, as the last meal before the communion that will take place the day after with the liturgy. Everything in general is chanted and due to the length 2 choirs are needed in general. The church was not crowded even if the day after was a non working day; there were people from 8 to 40 y.o. I would say at most 50 people with the celebrants, choir etc.These all-night vigils are more common in Greece, and in monasteries. I do really miss one...
Unfortunately, I guess such event would gather less faithfuls than dancing.
