User:Aabaig1/sandbox

= Nwaina =

Nwaina, or Ioanna Athanasiadou, was born in the city of Limassol in Cyprus. She attended a public primary school at the age of 6 years old and a year later she started having piano and theatre lessons and joined the private choir ‘Epilogi’. At the age of 11 she demonstrated a song on her guitar to her father. Thereupon her father challenged her to be a better guitarist than him. Soon she developed a passion for guitars and bought one too, named it 'Roula' and this is where it all began.

Her first original song called ‘Atitlo’ was composed and performed in the age of 14 when she went on a trip to Greece with her choir to sing at Herodio ancient theatre. The song was dedicated to the members of another Greek choir who hosted the Cypriot choir members, including Nwaina, and it talks about the meeting and bonding of once strangers and their painful departure. She then participated in a pancyprian composing competition (Lions) with the same song where she won the 3rd place. A year later she took part in the same competition with her song ‘Ksefoto’ and reached the 2nd place.

Further education
By the age of 18 she had travelled in several European countries to perform with her choir and as soon as she completed Lyceum in excellence she went off to Brunel University in London to study classical singing. Being dissatisfied with the course she moved to Brighton where she did her BA in Performance and Visual Arts (Music/Theatre), mentored by Mine Kaylan. Her artist’s name ‘Nwaina’ was then formed when she had to choose a name for a performance installation project for the purposes of the gallery. She came up with the name while mixing up the letters of her real name, Ioanna. She completed her course with a First Class Honors for her performance ‘Feeding Apollo, Eating Dionysus – a matrimony to the self’, a deconstruction of Greek Tragedy with elements of live art, ritual and multimedia, which she directed, designed and composed the music for. She then took a year off where she competed in the singing competition Live2Sing where she produced her own music videos and won a record deal with the record company of Lyra in Greece. However she decided to continue her studies in London. She took on an MA in Performance Design and Practice in St Martins College of Art and Design.