Primitive and Ancient Dance Flashcards
This intelligent Byzantine Empress of humble origin started her career as a dancer, amongst other things.
Theodora
The Minoan culture celebrated the myth of Minotaur, as seen through their focus on
labyrinths and bull-dancing
Pyrrhic dances were
vigorous soldier-based dances of Greece
Name four Greek playwrights:
Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Aeschylus
Dance can be categorized as serving one (or more) of three primary purposes:
community, presentational (display) or religious
Who is credited with inventing pantomime in Rome around 22BC
Pylades of Cilicia and Bathyllus of Alexndria
Name of the individual credited with the establishment of “theater”
Thespis
THe Dionysian Festival gave rise to early theater when
the celebrants moved the myth-telling re-enactments outside and formalized the presentation space
What four professions could women practice in ancient Egypt
midwife, priestess, dancer, mourner
Three 20th century choreogrpahers inspired and influenced by the arts and culture of Greece were:
Duncan, Graham, and Balanchine
Who were the Salii?
colleges of 24 dancing priests throughout Italy who sang votive songs to Mars
What was the purpose of dance for ancient cultures?
For developing community & practicing worship - including healing, preparing for battle, celebrating rites of passage
The Greek dramatists not only wrote plays - they were known to frequently
choreograph and dance in the stagings of their own works
A “kordax” was
a dance performed in Greek comedies that evolved into a lewd suggestive dance
What were the three forms of ancient Greek drama?
tragedy, comedy, satyr
which philosopher wrote what some consider to be the first description and analysis of the literary arts of tragedy and comedy? What was the name of the treatise?
Aristotle/ “Poetics”
A Shaman was
healer and religious leader - responsible for the physical and spiritual well-being of the community
Aristotle maintained that the artist
changes reality into another medium; he selects and re-shapes, making reality more universal, and thereby more powerful (and cathartic)
In his famous treatise on the arts, a famous Greek philosopher maintained that all arts serve two fundamental purposes:
catharsis and “poetikes” (“artistry”)
“Enthousiasmos” - the basis of the word “enthusiasm” - originally referred to
the altered state of having the god Dionysus within you
Who was the Greek Muse of Dance?
Terpsichore
Why was dance an important, even essential practice for society?
Dance was a primary form of communication that bonded the community, thereby increasing the society’s chances of survival
Although Greece saw the establishment of the first theaters, it was the Romans who
transformed the performance space into the basic kind of theater we typically see today
The “Artists of Dionysus” were
the first union, formed for professional poets, actors, trainers, chorus members and musicians
Plato classified movement in two ways
noble and ignoble
