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Aeschylus the choreographer


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Some readers of Ballet Tak will already know this, but many won't -- I just found it out myself, in the course of asking about hte origins of the word "choreographer." Scholars of classical Greece have believed for a long time that the playwrights Sophocles (Oedipius the King, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonnus) and especially Aeschylus (Agamemnon) not only wrote the words but also composed the dances, which were performed by the chorus as they spoke the poetry, which was composed with "feet" (i.e, rhythmic units suited for dancing. Like an iamb would be same rhythm as glissade or pas de chat. Dactyl like a balance or pas de basque). And Aeschylus in his younger days probably danced and acted in his plays as well as having arranged the movement patterns. The word Choreography was NOT in use yet; if they did have a word for it, I haven't heard what that was.

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Absolutely! That's why poetry has "feet." (Not that they teach scansion any more in schools, of course.)

It makes sense that the playwright would have been the "choreographer" -- although they wouldn't have considered it a separate thing, of course, as "plays" were unities of poetry, music and dancing. (Originally performed by a single actor, on platform shoes, declaining poetry, differentiating his roles by changes of mask, while the choros -- 15 men -- either reacted to the story, or became a part of the story, or made asides to the audience, or explained what had happened or was going to happen.)

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Scholars of classical Greece have believed for a long time that the playwrights Sophocles (Oedipius the King, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonnus) and especially Aeschylus (Agamemnon) not only wrote the words but also composed the dances, which were performed by the chorus as they spoke the poetry, which was composed with "feet" (i.e, rhythmic units suited for dancing. Like an iamb would be same rhythm as glissade or pas de chat.

I saw the Sophocles trilogy a couple of months ago at a downtown off-B.way theater--and loved every minute of it--but now I know what I have missed. Your descriptions of the dancing left me wishing I had seen a production that included it. I shall let the Pearl Theater Company know they need a choreographer. :off topic:

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Some readers of Ballet Tak will already know this, but many won't -- I just found it out myself, in the course of asking about hte origins of the word "choreographer." Scholars of classical Greece have believed for a long time that the playwrights Sophocles (Oedipius the King, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonnus) and especially Aeschylus (Agamemnon) not only wrote the words but also composed the dances, which were performed by the chorus as they spoke the poetry, which was composed with "feet" (i.e, rhythmic units suited for dancing. Like an iamb would be same rhythm as glissade or pas de chat. Dactyl like a balance or pas de basque). And Aeschylus in his younger days probably danced and acted in his plays as well as having arranged the movement patterns. The word Choreography was NOT in use yet; if they did have a word for it, I haven't heard what that was.

I have yet to be convinced that the Greeks danced in a way that was choreographed like a ballet. I seem to remember reading that dance was more a movement of gesture in Greek plays although one presumes that the movements that apocryphally caused children in the audience to flee and women to abort on the spot at the sight of frightening vengeful furies when Aeschylus staged the ,"The Eumenides", that something more than gesture took place. If I remember correctly the word 'choreographie' did not enter the lexicon until 1700(such an easy date to remember) with Feuillet. Because learned persons for centuries used Greek and Latin as the languages of scholarship, words such as choreography were created when no such delineation of a writer and stager of plays with acting, singing, dancing and effects existed some 2,500 years ago. The mere mention of iamb by Paul Parish, brought to mind my English masters stinging comments of what seemed the torture of grasping iambic pentameter when a schoolchild.

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Yep. It was Aeschylus. There actually is a large raptor that lives in the Mediterranean, the Lammergeier, which drops bones and tortoises from altitude onto rocks in order to break them open. The story runs that Aeschylus, full of years and honors, was walking on the beach, seeking inspiration, when an eagle, spying his bald pate from above, mistook it for a rock and bombs away went the tortoise. Aesky never knew what hit him.

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Leonid, I apologize for evoking painful memories from your childhood. I sincerely regret doing so and can only say that I did not mean to.

Perhaps that teacher muddled everything up for you -- but it's pretty clear that classical scholars now believe that the greek chorus DANCED, and danced big, using the whole "orchestra" ( that large space ath te floor of the amphitheatre), with complex rhythmic footwork, and didn't just gesture in a vague sort of way. Indeed, a classicist told me recently that members of the chorus were exempt from military reserve duty since everyone understood that as sdancers they were fit for combat at a moment's notice. Perhaps Mel can add something to that. You must know a great deal, mel -- please share.

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It depended on which city-state you were in. In Athens, actors, including the choros, perhaps especially the choros, didn't have to go to drill. They already did the maneuvers as part of their stage work. Sometimes, actors were selected to be at least one of the two didaskaloi (military training instructors) of the city. They were pretty nimble, and could assume the phalanx or the tortoise drill (opposing spear or projectile force, respectively) as easily as other men walked to the market. There was a lot of prestige to being an actor in Athens, and many applications for their skill set.

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