Demons and Dancers: Performance in Late Antiquity

Front Cover
Harvard University Press, 2008 - Drama - 296 pages

Compared to the wealth of information available to us about classical tragedy and comedy, not much is known about the culture of pantomime, mime, and dance in late antiquity. Charges of obscenity and polemical anti-theater discourse have, at times, erased these popular performance traditions from the modern imagination. Demons and Dancers returns us to the times and places where those great ancient theaters were more than picturesque ruins dotting the Mediterranean landscape.

Ruth Webb fills this gap in our knowledge of the ancient world and provides us with a richly detailed look at social life in the late antique period through an investigation of its performance culture. The book focuses on the eastern empire, from Greece proper to modern-day Turkey and Egypt, between the second and sixth centuries CE. Using some of the tools provided by modern performance theory, this book explains how audiences interpreted the actions on stage, how the status of male and female performers shifted across time and place, how skilled the actors actually were (it was commonplace to dismiss these performers for their lack of skill), and what role spectacles involving spoken and sung words, as well as stylized gestures, had in Greco-Roman civic life.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Theater and Society
24
Performers
44
The Dancing Body
58
The Drama of Everyday Life
95
Mime Humor and Society
116
Identification and Estrangement
139
Possession and the Eye
168
Christians and the Theater
197
Conclusion
217
Abbreviations
225
Biographical and Bibliographical Notes on Sources
275
General Index
289
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

action actor actor-martyrs adultery adultery mime ancient Antioch Apuleius Aristeides audience Augustine baptism body Cambridge characters Charition mime Chorikios Christian claims comedy context costume culture dance dancer demons depiction discussion Drama Easterling elite emotion emperor entertainment Ephesos example farce female festivals fiction Figure fourth century gestures Greek Homily identity imitation inscriptions involved Jacob of Serugh Jealous Mistress John Chrysostom John Malalas late antique Libanios Lucian male mask Matthaeum Hom mime and pantomime mimesis mimetic Mimus movements nature Oxford P.Oxy pagan panto pantomime pantomime dancers papyrus Paris particularly Pelagia performance physical play plot Plutarch polemics Prokopios Quintilian reflect representation rhetorical role Rome Roueché Severus of Antioch sexual shows sixth century slaves social society soul sources specta spectacles spectator stage story suggests Tatian Tertullian theater theatrical Theodosian Theodosian Code tion traditional viewer Wiemken women γὰρ δὲ καὶ τὰ τὴν τῆς τὸ τῶν

About the author (2008)

Ruth Webb is Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck College London, and Professeur Associée, Université Paris 10.

Bibliographic information

TitleDemons and Dancers: Performance in Late Antiquity
AuthorRuth Webb
Editionillustrated
PublisherHarvard University Press, 2008
ISBN067403192X, 9780674031920
Length296 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Drama / Ancient & Classical
History / Ancient / Greece
History / General
Literary Criticism / Drama
Performing Arts / Theater / General
Performing Arts / Theater / History & Criticism
Religion / Christianity / History
  
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