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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
Join date : 2013-10-26
Age : 30
Location : Land of Dance and Song

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PostSubject: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyWed Jul 02, 2014 6:08 pm

After having been in Moscow for 1 month, the whole of June, to learn (the fundaments) of Lezginka dance, I decided that I will post my developments and insights in (Lezginka) dancing.
I will share my thoughts here, post videos / photos I took, pictures and videos of me to share my development into these dances and write down memories that I (will) have.
I will post my experiences / memories / insights slightly unordered (for you mainly).. But for me this will be a gather point of personal order and understanding where I can look back at - and thus use for my becoming.

My plan is, now I have a fundament, to learn more from the tutorial videos online and learn / repeat at the beach nearby my living place and to find a sport's hall where I can practice on my own when not in use.


Lezginka is the dance of Eagles, which one can notice even without any understanding about dances an sich.
Many videos I have posted in the 'Cultural Dances' topic if interested.

I see this dance as a dance of freedom, one can live at many places; at work for example, in a small room with a desk, to pay for your expensive house in which you cannot truly settle due to the job asking your continious presence,
or at a beach house, a cave, a villa, a palace etc. etc., but you have to realise that the main place you live in / with - is your body in correlation with your mind - until death.
By dancing you gain more control over your body parts - mind over body. Of course many sports can keep you healthy, but dancing one can do in nearly any environment without any other participants having to partake - and show a ''specific'' essence.


Lezginka got my special attention due to the beauty of the Eagle represented in the dance.
The dance teacher told me a few times jokingly that I danced as in French ballet: Meaning that I should show more masculine passion, take more space, show more power, to be more like an Eagle.
At first it is because my 'being', when presenting myself without intention to be noticed, is about ''unpretentiousness''.
But if I would actually ''take on the form of an Eagle'', while dancing, it cannot be done without the essence.
Thus it cannot be pretended, you are or you are not.
If you are not passionate, do not show confidence, do not take that which is yours (space, a partner and such), and do not show any power / passion; than you are more like a crippled chicken.
If you dance as an Eagle - true power in you is not mimicked, but honesty.

x


This specific video is not passionate to be accepted as a good example, but I use it because this is a start of 'my becoming' and a looking back..and simply a memory.
x


I will be honest; the first dance with the first girl was not good at all, since I did not know that many movements yet and still have to experiment dancing with a partner and become more creative with the movements (thus more spontanious).
The second dance with another partner went better and I could do the basics with more confidence; and thus this picture one has taken of me while doing so.
x


Last edited by OhFortunae on Thu Aug 28, 2014 3:58 pm; edited 2 times in total
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyWed Jul 02, 2014 6:18 pm

"Dance is a way to find yourself and lose yourself, all at the same time!"

Losing one's Self within Self; Self losing itself through honest expression not allowed in the mediocre society where everybody has to wear a mask and walk on a certain manner.

In dance, when you are ''losing'' yourself within it, you can't hide yourself; which truly means 'you are you' in all honesty.
Of course, when the dance is just danced due to its popularity / propagation, it is a lie...or not.

A folk's dance is the dance, or are the dances, evolved with a specific population in correlation with its Inborn-Culture (spiritual / intellectual capacity / abilities), its common health (a healthy mind manifest itself through the body, reflection / demeanor)
and the environment manifested within a population's (d/evolving) essence over time (mountain / ill air / flat land / sea, rough Nature / sheltered, artificial, sterile, man-made environment etc.).

Thus, this is about folk; now about individuals belonging to a distant folk - dancing ''foreign'' dances.
The White (wo)man dancing for example an inferior negro dance (shaking asses / dicks), it is foreign to the people as a whole to which s/he belongs to, but as an individual s/he exposes his/her inferiority in the dance.
An attraction towards the primal, Self losing itself in Self by ''letting it all go'' through hedonistic, impulsive Manimal movements resulting in a specific dance type, showing / exposing one's true essence -
Like for example this negress covered in a ''modest'' hijab; dancing her folk's dance, and shows she truly belongs to the common by losing herself in Self and the ''whole'' (thus her racial tendencies /averages); and no covering of the body can hide her (or anyone's) true Self from others or Self:

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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyThu Jul 03, 2014 3:07 pm

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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySat Jul 05, 2014 4:23 am

I will find this week a sporthall to practice in; for now I repeat the movements before I go to sleep, for the sake of memorizing; thus I have no building to practice with energy (space).

When the weather will be good, I will go to the sea and practice there with enough space, no to a few people, and simply being in Nature gives me a good feeling.
I went this evening for a short time (it suddenly started to rain very hard and wind blowing away my stuff..) at the sea to repeat some movements and I wanted to make a video of my practice space with the papaga but the rain and wind did not agree.
But I show you the environment and the practice-practice video..

The weather changed within a few minutes as seen in the 2 clips from good to darkness.

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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySun Jul 06, 2014 3:57 pm

Saturday evening I could enjoy 1 1/2 hours repeating Lezginka movements at the north-sea; I really like the papakha they gave me as a gift..

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Lyssa
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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyMon Jul 07, 2014 8:05 pm

OhFortunae wrote:

But I show you the environment and the practice-practice video..

The weather changed within a few minutes as seen in the 2 clips from good to darkness.



I liked that.

So secluded... an amazing feeling...


The Lord of the Dance hymn, minus the Jesus crap...

"I danced in the morning
When the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon
And the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven
And I danced on the earth,

They cut me down
And I leapt up high;
I am the life
That'll never, never die;
I'll live in you
If you'll live in me -
I am the Lord
Of the Dance, said he."

_________________
Personal dance developments and insights 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyWed Aug 27, 2014 12:01 pm

Culture is the emotional, intellectual, historical and continuing expression of a volk (ethnic people).
This can be expressed through reciting poetry, specific music compositions, garments, architecture, paintings and - all of it often combined in ; folkdance.

The specific dance can represent one's momentarily feelings, but if it is a part of the folk as a whole and they dance that what has been passed on to them - it reflects the 'volks-spirit'.
The cultural expressiveness of each people is distinct and unique, but it also shows us a connection between different peoples through common blood, similar environment (the environment shapes the [collective] mind over time; due to certain requirements needed in order to survive [or simply the most desired] in a particular spherical-environment. Such as mountains, hilly landscapes, flatlands, the sea, or...modern, sterile, artificial environments), trade, migration, spirituality and...war.

War often being terrible; it also strives to hope, survival, beauty, creativity, strength and overall victory. The dance with all its other expressive splendor (music, garments etc.,), often represents as 'being brethren in war', but also individual with an ''imaginary'' enemy which can be linked to actual conflicts in the past.

A dance can tell us what your ancestors have been through, it is a communication with your past with which we all are a part of (genetic legacy). Folkdances tell us about the ancient love stories, conflicts, wars, environmental struggle, celebrations etc., your ancestors had participated in and had to endure.

A dance as a respectable means of communication with the environment and its creatures also is common; such as Lezginka (dances from the Caucasus), which represents for an important part, besides ancestral continuity - the Eagle.

_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySat Sep 06, 2014 4:22 pm

Today I have been in Utrecht to get to know various Greek dances, my first lesson - I specifically asked for individual / warrior dances;
thus I learned my first steps of Zeibekiko and spend the whole lesson on improving them and to do it on the rhythm of the music.

I explained why I have interests in various cultural dances of specific peoples to him.
My interest for the Greek dances are due to Satyr having reawakened my joy in reading and my interest in the Hellenic culture which I liked so much during my childhood (my grandfather was a teacher of classical languages Latin and old Greek on the university and learned me, which I have now forgotten, to write 'Alexander the Great' in Greek).

The teacher told me a lot which Satyr also wrote regarding the spirituality of the dance; he could tell it in such a way that I almost got a tear in my eye.
The dance varies in movements depending on the location (Anatolia, Greece, villages, regions) and even within the same village it varies per family.
He told that the dance expresses your (emotional) well being; sad, happy, angry, and that he can see the personality from the first steps being danced.

At first, he will teach me the basics, of course, learning me his style; after having progressed that I can do it as easy as I walk,
then I can give my own style, my own story, my own past, my own spirit to this dance.
The dance always exposes yourSelf and is in confrontation with the music, the rhythm; if you dance this dance, in front of a public, you have to draw the attention of the people from the music that is being played, to the dance which should be in harmony with the rhythm.
You cannot make any mistakes in Zeibekiko, he told me, but one - not dancing on the rhythm.

I used to much force with my feet when I made contact with the floor, thus he said that I should be more lighty with my feet - then he made a movement and slapped his hand on the floor.
''Not with your feet, but you may use your hands to slap with vigour on the ground, the ground will give you energy, always in contact with the earth; often you see the dancers with the arms spread in the air and their hands open, it is about asking for and taking the spirits - a balance between the earth and the sky''.
I tried it, with the music, with less thinking on my movements after repeating them over and over again, I could feel it ...or it is because it feels more natural to move my upperbody along with my lower body and being focused on the rhythm of the enchanting music.


After the lesson I made another appointment for the next saturday.
Thus I walked to the bus stop, I waited, a old woman came and asked me which bus she should take to the station; we talked a little bit and then she asked me what my reason is to be in Utrecht. I told her about the Greek dances, she told me she is a Greek. She told that her family had lived in a certain region connected with a specific dance but had to leave due to the ''outlanders'' (in Turkey).
She herself came to the Netherlands for economic reasons; and established a community school in Utrecht to teach the Greek language and history, mainly for the Greek community to stay in touch with their culture. The older woman herself also knows a lot about the dances and said that her father had connections with famous Greek dancers and told me that 'the jumping is wrong', that it was started by the youth.
I had a good talk with her, she wants to send me to my e-mail various good Greek songs and dance videos, and even some books to my address after I jokingly said that I might learn the Greek language.

A person belonging to a volk who dances for centuries, seemingly all know what they talk about regarding their dances.

Sometimes, it feels as if Fate connects persons and desires, but only if you direct yourself to a certain goal - if you know what, yet not yet.



My teacher:




_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
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Age : 30
Location : Land of Dance and Song

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySun Sep 07, 2014 3:58 pm

I got lucky to film some beautiful dances in the Hague today - most of the performed dances, which I did not dare to flim, were worthless however.

Ten, eleven and thirteen year old girls dancing upon negro music (two Whites, one Chinese, one full blooded negress and around six mixbreeds).
''Nigger, ghetto booty, dicks, fuck, shit'' were some of the words they were dancing on..
When the annoying woman who announces the planning asked for some freestyle, they looked like clowns, just painful to watch.

After that crap, the woman asked for some volunteers in the public to perform some dances during the left-over time..
One mixbreed and one White girl, very sexual clothing, around fifteen years old - twerking, slapping each others asses..
The White girl sucked, she was to stiff, the mixbreed could do all the sexual movements pretty well (maturity differences between the races).
When they performed, I saw one Armenian girl grabbing another girl, younger than her, by the arm to lead her away because she was too young to be exposed by such degrading behaviour.

Later on, the woman announced a group of girls and one teen boy; they would ''show the darkness inside of them through the dance'' as were the words she spoke from the paper..
They would tell their life stories... So they all had the same life? Some ''ballet'', sexual / stalking dance - I could not figure out the story.
One of the girls had a arm full of scars, white stripes all over it - she had cut herself in the past.
The only Dutch teen dance group, being actual Dutch, could only show some masochistic and 'buuuhoo, poor me' dance.


But here are the beautiful dances:






_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
Join date : 2013-10-26
Age : 30
Location : Land of Dance and Song

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySat Jan 31, 2015 4:14 pm

When I still trained as a means for improvement of my demeanor.


_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
Join date : 2013-10-26
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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySun Feb 08, 2015 10:15 am

I have much to learn..
My teacher dances Zeibekiko on the composition if Takis Sideris:


_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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Age : 30
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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySun Feb 22, 2015 5:57 pm

This is my favourite song to dance Zeibekiko upon; such a strong, moving and celebrating expression - is this song.
Each person within his own atmosphere, to dance, but with this song in any atmosphere - for it creates it within me.


_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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Satyr
Daemon
Satyr

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySun Feb 22, 2015 7:50 pm

Evdokia's Zeimbekiko, written by Manos Loizos, one of the most well known Zeimbekiko.
No lyrics.

It drips with joyous sorrow.

I prefer this version...because it's more clean and it emphasizes the baglama instrument....



Text translation:
Quote :
The ancient dance of the Thracians brought to Asian Minor by the zeimbekides...
and was returned to Greece by refugees in 1922....
The dance is never performed cold or as an empty showing-off...
It is the physical display of defeat...
The misery of life
Of the lost dream
The sorrow of a spirit that never adapted to the order of others.

THE DANCER
Sympathizes with the lyric which, to some degree, describe his personal circumstance.
This is why it is he who chooses the song he will dance to.
He improvises in a very small space, with dignity and humility

"What endless passion is mine; all to wish for life and I for my own death"  (Vamvakaris)

The Zempekiko
It is not directed towards others.
The "manga" is modest, well-dressed, and solitary.
He is not a swaggering exhibitionist, and a street hustler

As it is defined in the Meizon Greek dictionary...
Mangas: smart, and with the behavior that belongs to a man.  

Only an ancient people, who have experienced much in their long history, could invent such a Dionysian love of sorrow.
For the rest ti seems contradictory. They cannot relate.
They may even mock.
To them belong the dances and songs of decadence and primal sexual frenzy.  

Zeimbekiko...a warrior's dance brought over from Asia Minor by the Greeks who settled in Greece in the population exchange after the war.

With them they brought the musical styles that would evolve in what was later called....
Rembetiko,

...an urban style which was outlawed because it was popular among then underworld, of drugs and criminal activity.
Later it was popularized by song-writers such as Vamvakaris.
My favorite.

The style is is similar to Negro blues in many ways, as it speaks of pain, and sorrow, and poverty, but also of love, and hope.
This is my favorite piece by Vamvakari...



The version is sung by George Dallaras who was a popular singer in Greece when I was a teenager.
The lyrics are particularly poignant.

Rempetiko can be danced free-style, like Zeimbekiko, only it is heavier, slower.

A typical Greek get-together...
All eat, all drink, and singing and dancing are preformed by all...



At 2:40 you will see the traditional way of dancing rempetiko, and I suspect zeimbekiko dancing derived from it.
Notice how it is 2-3 men dancing face to face, circling one another, in a mock-battle display.
A hint to the music's and the dance's traditional roots as a warrior's dance.

_________________
γνῶθι σεαυτόν
μηδέν άγαν


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Satyr
Daemon
Satyr

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySun Feb 22, 2015 7:52 pm

Moved it here because dance is an artistic expression, and it belongs in this section.

_________________
γνῶθι σεαυτόν
μηδέν άγαν
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyMon Feb 23, 2015 2:46 pm

Thank you for sharing and translating;
my teacher knows a lot about the history and meaning of the dances, in particular Zeibekiko; and the spiritual meaning such as when you hit the ground with your hand to get energy from the earth (or as to indicate that others may dance / leave), and by having your arms open in the air, to receive the spirits as ''becoming drunk''.
I still have to ask to talk more about these subjects, he already told me that such talks with me are to be considered as a part of the lessons.


The specific song I mentioned, I like it so far the most because it fills me with 'drunken energy', though I have to learn on different songs of course to recognize a pattern regarding the speed of the rhythm - I do not drink alcohol at all except prior dancing lesson and during (1 / 2 beers), at first because it was my only way of understanding the rhythm, and now that I understand, to be more, or to be faster, within myself and the atmosphere.
But if really in the song and atmosphere, not just that one, it makes you drunk without drinking.


After Georgian, I might start learning Greek - it is important for me to understand the text as I like the tonal vibrations in this language and the dances of course are linked to the music. I consider to go to Greece in the summer on invatation - depending on circumstances.


In Rempetiko, I notice that when walking, it is similar to what the 'Turks' dance as Zeybeg
https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/t1394p40-cultural-dances
As by simulating the movements of an Eagle; though a freer expression / Dionysian.

_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyMon Feb 23, 2015 3:05 pm

Satyr wrote:
Text translation:
Quote :
The ancient dance of the Thracians brought to Asian Minor by the zeimbekides...
and was returned to Greece by refugees in 1922....
The dance is never performed cold or as an empty showing-off...
It is the physical display of defeat...
The misery of life
Of the lost dream
The sorrow of a spirit that never adapted to the order of others.

THE DANCER
Sympathizes with the lyric which, to some degree, describe his personal circumstance.
This is why it is he who chooses the song he will dance to.
He improvises in a very small space, with dignity and humility

"What endless passion is mine; all to wish for life and I for my own death"  (Vamvakaris)

The Zempekiko
It is not directed towards others.
The "manga" is modest, well-dressed, and solitary.
He is not a swaggering exhibitionist, and a street hustler

As it is defined in the Meizon Greek dictionary...
Mangas: smart, and with the behavior that belongs to a man.


My teacher told me there is no mistake in Zeibekiko but only to be out of the rhythm - which you can correct very freely in Zeibekiko with any improvised or already known movement (combination), or by the two steps as the right feet over the left, to become in tune again, without noticing.
Beside that each person has its own style in accordance with his past (genes, life perspective and experiences) and touch of the atmosphere; the choreographic version differ in each family thus the individual may be identified as belonging to a particular ''tribe''.

I have seen now on youtube many styles, many dancing in sorrow in themselves - not to look to any face; but also those celebrating life and fertility. I still develop my style as I become more comfortable with the movements as becoming my nature, but still have to become more familiar as to dance within me.

_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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Lyssa
Har Har Harr
Lyssa

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyTue May 19, 2015 6:28 pm

A little history.


Marianne McDonald wrote:
"In Hindu religion Shiva dances the Anandatandava (the dance of bliss), symbolizing the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, the rhythms of birth and death and the perennial movements of the cosmos. In the hymns of the Veda, the dawn, Ushas, is described as a dancer who appears on a stage. This has no parallel in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. But in Sophocles’ Antigone the chorus invoke Dionysus as a choragos (dance-leader) of the fire-breathing stars (1146–7). Plato (Timaeus 40c) describes the heavenly bodies with their ‘juxtapositions and their approximations . . . circling as in dance’, and in another work ascribed to Plato the stars are said to move ‘through the figures of the fairest and most glorious of dances’ (Epinomis 982e). Five centuries later Lucian writes that:

Dance came into being contemporaneously with the primal origin of the uni- verse, making her appearance together with Love – the love that is age-old. In fact, the concord of the heavenly spheres, the interlacing of the errant planets with the fixed stars, their rhythmic agreement and timed harmony, are proofs that Dance was primordial.2 (On the Dance 7)

For the Greeks heavenly bodies dance, and so do the gods. In the Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo of the sixth century BC, Aphrodite dances with the Charites (the Graces), the Horai (the configuration of dance), while Ares and Hermes dance playfully in their midst. Apollo himself ‘plays the lyre, stepping high and beautifully, and around him shines a radiance and gleamings of his feet and his well-sewn tunic’. Leto and Zeus look on with pleasure (194–206).

The procession of gods in a mystic vision described by Plato (Phaedrus 247a) is a divine choros, i.e. a group that dances and sings. In a fragment of the lost epic cycle, from the Titanomachy (fr. 5), even Zeus, the dignified father of the gods, dances at the centre of a group.

Lesser divinities such as Muses, Nereids (sea-nymphs) and Graces are per- sistently linked to dance in art, myth and literature. Hesiod’s Theogony begins with the Muses, who ‘dance on tender feet around the deep-blue spring and altar of the almighty son of Cronos’. Nereids are depicted danc- ing in Greek iconography and in choral passages of tragedy, as in Euripides’ Ion:

Zeus’ starry sky began the dance, and the moon dances, and Nereus’ fifty daughters who in the sea and whirlings of ever-flowing rivers dance for the gold-crowned maiden [Persephone] and her holy mother [Demeter]. (1078–86)

Finally, it is not just the cosmos and the deities that dance. Fawns are imag- ined as dancing (e.g. Euripides Alcestis 582–5), and so are dolphins (in vase- painting and at Euripides Electra 860). Dionysus makes herds of animals ‘dance’ (Pindar fragment 70b); and the whole mountain and its wild animals join in the bacchic movement of the maenads (Euripides Bacchae 726–7).

Pre-modern peoples often imagine the cosmos, deity and nature in terms of socially central institutions and practices. When the Greeks project dance onto cosmos, deity and nature, this is a symptom of the social centrality of their dancing. It is significant that what makes Lucian see dance in the heav- enly bodies is the coordination of their movement. In our postmodern world, the arts are distinct from other areas of significant activity, economic, social, political and religious. Dancing occurs at times and in spaces designated for entertainment. The ancient Greeks also danced simply for enjoyment (for instance the suitors feasting in the house of Odysseus in the Odyssey), but frequently not only for enjoyment: they had what may be called a dance culture, in which much of their dancing contributed to processes needed for the coordination, survival, reproduction and prosperity of the community. These processes or contexts included agriculture, warfare, rites of passage, festivals, celebrations of athletic victory, deliverance and theatre.

In agriculture, as in warfare, the coordination of movement is crucial, and this is sometimes achieved by music. Celebrating or rehearsing such coordi- nated activities may take the form of dance. The joy and the grief attached to the fruitfulness of death in the agricultural cycle found expression in the Linos dance-song described in the Iliad:

Young girls and young men, in all their light-hearted innocence, carried the kind, sweet fruit away in their woven baskets,
and in their midst, a youth with a singing lyre played charmingly upon it for them, and sang the beautiful song for Linos
in a light voice, and they followed him, and with singing and whistling and light dance-steps of their feet kept time to the music. (18.567–72)3

Ailinos came to mean lament and was derived from the cry ai Linon (‘alas for Linos’), a lament for a legendary musician said to have died young. Linon also means ‘flax’ and so, in the performance of the dance song, the plant and the musician merge. In the inscribed ‘Hymn of the Kouretes’ to the ‘Greatest Kouros (Young Man)’ the young men urge him to leap into the jars, the flocks, the fields – an idea surely deriving from the impetus to promote fertility through vigorous leaping.

The pyrricheˆ was, according to Lysias (c.459 BC–c.380 BC), danced at the Athenian Panathenaea festival by naked youths brandishing shields (21.1–4). Plato (Laws 815a) describes it as imitating avoidance of blows and missiles by dodging, pulling back, leaping on high and into a crouch, as well as aggressive postures, the shooting of arrows and javelins and all kinds of blows. It is referred to also by Aristophanes (Clouds 988–9). Euripides in his Andromache describes Neoptolemus’ avoidance of a shower of missiles with the memorable metaphor of dancing the pyrricheˆ (1135). Armed dancing was of course not confined to Athens. Plato (Laws 796b) speaks of armed dances at Athens for Athena, at Sparta for the Dioscuri and on Crete for Zeus, and his contemporary Xenophon (Anabasis 6.1.11) mentions Arcadians putting on a show by marching in armour to pipes and singing a paean and dancing ‘just as they do in their processions to the gods’.

Armed dancing by youths was likely to mark their entry into the sta- tus of warrior, and so to belong, loosely or specifically, to a rite of pas- sage to adulthood. Groups of girls too would sing and dance to mark their passage to womanhood. In seventh-century BC Sparta Alcman composed partheneia, songs performed by dancing girls on the threshold of woman- hood, apparently at festivals of the whole community. Herodotus in the sixth century BC reports that ‘the Samians instituted a festival (which is in fact still celebrated in the same way nowadays), which involved unmarried girls and boys dancing every night . . .’.
A passage of the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo (146–64) describing the performance of the Delian maidens (kourai) as the highlight of the Ionian festival of Artemis and Apollo on Delos is quoted by Thucydides (3.104), who adds that the Athenians and island cities revived the practice of sending (probably adolescent) choroi. Girls danced for Artemis in Karyai and boys danced at the Spartan Gymnopaidia for Apollo (Pausanias 3.10.7; 4.16.9).

A formal ceremonial was the wedding. Homer (Iliad 18.491–5) describes a representation, on the shield of Achilles, of brides being led through the streets, with wedding-song, while youths dance to the sound of pipes and lyres. In what survives of Euripides’ play Phaethon the chorus of girls sings a wedding-song, to which presumably – as is normally the case with choral songs in tragedy – they dance. Then the girls are taken inside the house and told to dance in a circle as they sing wedding-songs (227–44). In Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis we hear of fifty girls whirling in a circle as they ‘dance the marriage of Nereus’ (1055–7) and in Trojan Women (308–40) Cassandra calls on the chorus and on her mother to ‘dance for her wedding’ as she herself performs her mad dance song invoking Hymenaios, the young marriage-god.

Death ritual is a formal rite of passage. Greek lamentations were generally performed by women. We know that their performance was often accom- panied by coordinated and rhythmical bodily movement, for instance the beating of the breast. One Euripidean lament evokes a ‘choros which Hades honours’ (Suppliants 73–5), another a ‘choros of Hades’ (Heracles 1025–7), and tragic choruses sometimes lament while dancing. But none of this means that the lament was generally accompanied by dance in the narrow sense of patterned movement of the whole body, including the feet.

An occasion for group dancing was provided by athletic victory. Pausanias (6. 22. 1–4) mentions the dancing of the orgiastic kordax around the sanctu- ary of Artemis in celebration of Pelops’ victory at Pisa. But we also have the magnificent epinicians (victory odes) of Pindar (518–438 BC), which were clearly written to be simultaneously sung and danced.

For the obtaining or celebration of deliverance it might be appropriate to sing a choral paean (e.g. in warfare: Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes 267–70; deliverance from plague: Iliad 1.472–3). Occasionally the paean is said to have been danced: in Euripides a chorus mentions the girls of Delos whirling in dance around the temple of Apollo as they sing a paean (Heracles 687–90), and Iphigenia, before her sacrifice which she believes will bring victory for the Greeks, tells the chorus of girls to sing a paean to Artemis and to whirl around her altar and temple (Iphigenia at Aulis 1467–81). Sophocles makes a chorus of girls sing and dance a paean on the return of Heracles to Deianeira (Women of Trachis 210–24).

Pollux in his Onomasticon (4.104) reports that ‘the dithyrambic dance’ was called tyrbasia, a word that implies riotousness. The dithyramb was a hymn in honour of Dionysus, which – it seems – was originally sung in a procession, probably to escort Dionysus to his festival, but was trans- formed into a song sung in a fixed position by a ‘circular chorus’. The dithyramb continued to be associated with a Dionysiac context, being per- formed most notably at the City Dionysia in fifth-century Athens, but might be performed with little or no Dionysiac content: a surviving dithyramb by Bacchylides, for instance, narrates a story about Theseus. The transformation of the dithyramb was from a processional danced song, that probably had the function of bringing in Dionysus for his festival, to a danced song that was fixed to a single place. Having lost its processional function, the dithyramb may have acquired new roles – perhaps the evocation of Dionysus and certainly mere narration of myth (Dionysiac or non- Dionysiac)

The metrical schemes inherent in the words of tragic songs are based on combinations of long and short syllables. The schemes are elaborate and varied, and yet are generally repeated identically between one stanza (the stropheˆ) and the next (the antistropheˆ).

This combination of complexity and discipline reflects the dance, in which the elaborate dance movements of the ‘turning’ (stropheˆ) of the chorus are followed by the same movements in its ‘turning back’ (antistropheˆ).

This double movement was often followed by an epode, giving a triadic structure that is also found in the danced choral song of ‘lyric poets’ such as Stesichorus or Pindar. The metrical units (of a few syllables each) are also on the whole shared with non-theatrical choral song.

Also derived from pre-theatrical choral danced song is composition in genres, but this works very differently in tragedy. Because the dramatized myth of tragedy is divorced from any particular context, tragic choruses can move from one genre (or its mere evocation) to another, sometimes within the same song. The genre (and its associated context, such as the wedding) is represented, or evoked, by means of typical, traditional themes and verbal forms.

Here is an example, from Euripides’ Hippolytus. A danced choral song (525–64) is divided into two parts, each containing a stropheˆ and antistropheˆ . The first pair is a propitiatory hymn to Eroˆs (sexual passion) pervaded with a sense of his potential for destruction exemplified by his power to shoot missiles. Of the second pair the stropheˆ evokes the myth of Heracles’ violent capture of Iole and his consequent violent death. These events are called a ‘murderous wedding’, Heracles is ‘wretched in his wedding-songs’, and there is an image from the wedding-song (Iole as a yoked filly). The antistropheˆ evokes the myth of Semele destroyed by a thunderbolt as she gave birth to Dionysus, the typical myth of the dithyramb, and ends with the image of Aphrodite floating around like a bee. We have then in sequence evocations of hymn, wedding-song and dithyramb, but the Dionysiac subversion of the reproductive process (Semele) is prefigured even in the wedding-song by calling Iole baccheˆ (maenad), a word whose position in the stropheˆ corre- sponds with Bacchou (Dionysus) in the antistropheˆ . It is extremely likely that generic performance, such as danced wedding-song, contained much that was traditional and typical beyond the words: dance steps, but also other aspects of bodily movement such as speed, vehemence and hand gestures, as well as musical mode, pace, volume and intensity, and rhythm, which was dis- tinguished from metre. These elements too, we may well imagine, belonged to the tragic invocation of context through genre. But we cannot know that, for they are all lost. Therefore, and because ancient writers agree that choral dance was imitative, it is worth imagining the performance of tragic song in which the vacuum is filled by elements from a surviving traditional sig- nifying system of bodily movements.

Having indicated the role of dance in (1) imagining the cosmos, (2) central social processes, (3) its combination with words, music and contextual associations in the creation of meaning, and (4) tragedy, we turn now to the general features of dance that qualify it for its central role in Greek society.

Dances in socially central contexts were generally performed, not by an individual but by a group, the choros. In this respect too – as well as through its ubiquity and social centrality – Greek dancing expressed and confirmed the identity and the cohesion of the community. The unanimous movement of numerous individuals coordinated by music and song in the dance is an aesthetically and emotionally powerful image of communal cohesion. The thiasos of the Bacchae claims in its danced song that the Dionysiac initiate ‘joins his soul to the thiasos’ (75). The central benefit of ritual – to create a guiding image of perfect control in an unpredictable world – is especially attainable by means of dance, not just because of its apparently effortless unanimity, but also because in the dance – more so even than in (most) rit- ual – the material that forms the powerful image consists only of ourselves, without anything that may be beyond human control. This symbolic signif- icance of the collective dance is likely to be especially important in societies that – like the ancient Greek city – depend on the human body (rather than on advanced technology) for their productive and military capacities.

For the Greeks dance might seem to be an embodiment of order, and used to make peace. Xenophon says that ‘there is nothing so useful or beautiful as order’, and gives as an example of this principle the choros (Oeconomicus 8.3). Pausanias (5.16.5–6) recounts how the sixteen most esteemed women of Elis were appointed to establish two choroi in order to ‘make peace between the cities of Pisa and Elis’. But the richest text on the importance of dancing for the social order is by Plato, who wrote not long after the end of the most creative period of Athenian tragedy.

In the Laws Plato describes the ‘right’ kind of education. The young of all species are always moving and crying out. But whereas the animals have no perception of order and disorder in their movements, humans have been appointed by deities to be their companions in the dance, and these deities have given humans a sense of pleasure in rhythm and harmony, with the result that they lead us in the dance, joining us to one another in dances and songs (653e–654a, 664e). And so religion is central to dance, and dance is central to education: ‘one who is not trained in the chorus (achoreutos) is uneducated (apaideutos)’ (654b). But choral performance is not to be con- fined to the young. In the ideal city, choral performance is to be divided into three age groups, with the Muses and Apollo leading the boys’ and young men’s choruses, and Dionysus the chorus of men between fifty and sixty – with their vigour restored by wine.

So, dance through rhythm and harmony expresses the god-given coordination of the group and is central to the life of the ideal polis and to the education of its citizens.

Choral dancing imitates character and ways of doing (655d), and is good or bad according to whether it expresses, and so tends to inculcate, virtue or vice (655b). In the Republic it is asked which rhythms are ‘those of an orderly and courageous life’ and ‘which movements suit meanness and insolence and madness and other badness, and which rhythms are to be left for the opposite qualities’ (399e–400b).

Another quality desired by Plato in choral performance is internal consistency, but of a very special kind. The Muses, unlike certain human poets, would not set masculine language to a female scale and melody, nor would they put together the song and (bodily) figures of free men and then attach rhythms of slaves and base men, and so on (669c). For Plato the main kind of inconsistency in choral performance is the mixing of a superior social group with an inferior one. He goes on to deplore the contemporary disin- tegration of the unity of words, music and dance: poets separate the rhythm and (bodily) figures from the melody, setting bare words to the metre, and also separating the melody and rhythm from the words (669e). Here again, Plato’s objection is moral and social as well as aesthetic: in the absence of words, it is difficult to know what the rhythm and harmony mean and whether anything worthy is being imitated, and this sort of thing produces coarseness (agroikia, literally ‘rusticity’).

Later, in the Laws, Plato produces his classification of dances (814e–817a). They are to be divided into the serious, which imitates the more beautiful bodies with a solemn (semnon) effect, and that which imitates uglier bodies with a vulgar (phaulon) effect. The serious category is itself divided into war dancing (the pyrricheˆ), in which Plato recommends the upright and braced posture that imitates good bodies and souls, and dances of peace, in which the dancer should maintain the naturalness and gracefulness appropriate to law-abiding men. The dances of peace are subdivided into thanksgiving dances for the restoration of prosperity following turmoil and dances that give thanks for the continuation or augmentation of prosperity. Plato goes out of his way to praise the naming of peaceful dancing as emmeleia, which means ‘in tune’ as well as more generally ‘appropriate’. As for vulgar dancing, the imitation of ugly bodies and thoughts, which includes comedy, this must not be performed by free citizens, but must be left to slaves and hired aliens.

Plato’s classification of dance is quite different from the classification by social context that we adopted earlier. Although he proposes some descriptive classification (within his category of the serious), the main thrust of his categorisation is evaluative. Whereas the multifarious contexts listed above preceded the polis (and were more or less absorbed into it), the perspective of Plato derives exclusively from concern for the unity and incorruptibility of the polis and for the single value (virtue) on which a unified and incorruptible polis depends. In his conceptualization of the dance a variety of contexts is largely replaced by a single value – largely, but not entirely, for his chorus of young men are to sing a paean, and he pays attention to the pyrricheˆ, which as military training is essential for the well-being of the polis as a whole. But most instructive is his reference to the performance of ‘purifications and initiations’ by people dancing under the influence of wine in imitation of Nymphs and Pans and Satyrs (815c). This belongs to our category of dances in mystic initiation, specifically Dionysiac mystic initiation. Plato is puzzled about how to classify it, finally deciding to ‘leave it aside’ because it ‘does not belong to the polis’ (ou politikon). Finally, it must be emphasized that despite the enormous difference between the classification of dance above and that of our fourth-century philosopher, they are both based on the social dimension of dance.

In his Deipnosophistai (Philosophers at Dinner), a compilation of learning presented as dinner conversation, Athenaeus (second century AD) preserves ideas of dance from the fifth century BC:

The followers of Damon the Athenian are right to say that songs and dances are the result of the soul’s being in a kind of motion; those songs which are noble and beautiful produce noble and beautiful souls, whereas the contrary kind produce the contrary . . . For whether in dancing or in walking, decency and dignity of bearing are beautiful, whereas immodesty and vulgarity are ugly. For this reason from the beginning the poets arranged dances for free men, and they used the dance-figures (scheˆmata) only to illustrate the theme of the songs, always preserving nobility and manliness in them . . . But if anyone arranged his figures with undue exaggeration, or when he came to his songs said anything that did not correspond to the dance, he was discredited. (628c)

Athenaeus at this point (628d) cites the example of Hippocleides (reported in Herodotus, vi. 128–133) who ‘danced away his marriage’ by standing on his head and ‘beating time with his legs in the air’ to display his dancing skills to his prospective father-in-law. This had the opposite of the desired effect since, according to Athenaeus, the performance revealed not the skilfulness of his body but the vulgarity of his soul. Athenaeus then continues (628e) to praise the ‘decent’ and ‘dignified’ choral dancing of the fifth century BC which emulated the movements of men under arms, so that ‘Socrates in his poems says that those who dance most beautifully are the best in warfare . . . For the art of dancing was virtually like armed manoeuvres, and a display not merely of discipline in general but also of care taken for the body.’

Damon was an older contemporary of Plato, and the passages above embody the Platonic concerns with the effect of dancing on the soul, with the social hierarchy of dancing (‘free men’), with the danger of excess and the unity of words and movement, and with dancing as training for warfare. But another contemporary of Plato, Xenophon, provides a very different picture. His Symposium is about an evening party, in which dances are per- formed to entertain the guests.

This is dancing in a private space and with no ritual function. There is a dance with whirling hoops (2.Cool and dances in which the body bends to imitate hoops (2.22). There is a dangerous acrobatic dance involving a circle of upright knives (2.11–12) and mention of ‘dancing, to the pipe, of figures in which Graces and Seasons and Nymphs are painted’ (7.5). As a finale, Ariadne enters and sits on a throne, a Bacchic rhythm is played on the pipe, and Dionysus dances towards her. They embrace, and ‘there were many figures (scheˆmata) to behold’. In the end the guests depart in a state of erotic excitement.

Plutarch (c.46–120 AD) advocates a close correspondence between dance gestures and words so that the lines of the poetry ‘dictate representation in dancing, summoning our hands and feet’ as if connected by strings which the words pull (748c1–4). This is followed by a condemnation of the pantomime popular in his day where the caprices of this theatrical dance are said to have debased poetry and music by bringing them ‘under her sway’ (748d).

In his Table Conversations (747b–748d) Plutarch sets out an analysis of the dance into three elements: phora (movement), scheˆma (pose) and deixis (pointing). Scheˆmata (plural of scheˆma) ‘is the name of the representational positions in which the movements end, as when dancers compose their bodies in the attitude of Apollo or Pan or a Bacchant, and then retain that aspect like figures in a picture’. Deixis is not imitative but indication or pointing, as when poets use proper names.

The Onomasticon, a Greek lexicon compiled in the late second century AD by Pollux, contains, in the section on theatre terminology, a list of words about dance (4.95–110). Some of the words are grouped under various cate- gories, such as adjectives for the dancer, qualities of dance, verbs and adverbs of the dance and words related to the chorus.

One entry covers the three dramatic genres: ‘Kinds of dances (are) tragic emmeleia, comic kordaxes, satyric sikinnis’ (in this Pollux is preceded by the fourth-century BC expert Aristoxenos). The emmeleia is described by a later writer as ‘solemn and grandiose, with many long pauses between movements’.7 Athenaeus describes the kordax as a ludicrous and indecent dance-form characteristic of comedy (631d) and the sikinnis as a fast and unrelentingly vigorous dance involving shaking (618c and 630b–631a).

Asforscheˆmata(figures),wefindthemessengers’scheˆmataimitatedbythe ‘messenger dance’, and the ‘scheˆmata of tragic dancing’. The latter include

–  the simeˆ cheir and cheir katapraneˆs (hand upturned and hand down-turned).

–  the kalathiskos, meaning ‘little basket’, which has been taken to indicate the gesture of holding hands above the head like a basket-bearer.

–  the thermaustris, meaning ‘tongs’. But this occurs elsewhere in the list as a dance involving leaping, and is said by another writer (Critias 88B 36 Diels-Kranz) to be an energetic dance step in which the dancers ‘leapt high into the air and crossed their feet several times before hitting the ground again’.

What we read in Pollux is an unsatisfactory summary of earlier scholar- ship, which brings together material from widely divergent times and places (e.g. classical tragedy and contemporary pantomime) and is sometimes at odds with what we discover elsewhere. It raises numerous complex prob- lems (such as whether a given dance is individual or choral) and the access that it gives us to ancient dancing is rather limited. Nevertheless, we cannot fail to be struck by the fact that many of the names of the dances suggest imitation – of an action or an animal or a person – that is without social significance. For example the maktrismos, from maktra meaning ‘kneading- trough’, is a gyration of the hips (‘ludicrous’ according to Athenaeus 629f). Theskoˆps,whichmeans‘owl’,is‘akindofdancinghavingatwistinground of the neck in imitation of the bird, which is caught when stunned at the dancing’ (although at Athenaeus 629f. it is an imitation of someone gazing into the distance and curving their hand high over their forehead). The geranos, ‘crane’, was danced in imitation of Theseus’ exit from the labyrinth. It is difficult to judge in each case the extent to which the names entered into the creative consciousness of the dancers and choreographers (as opposed to observers and scholars). If they did generally and to a great extent, this would suggest a coded system of dancing, exemplified rather differently by the mudras of Indian classical dance.

Whatever the truth of this – whether the names come from the process of creation or of reception – Pollux’s account, together with our passages of Xenophon and Plutarch, imply a conceptualization of the dance that is in a sense at the opposite pole to defining dance by context and function or by its moral and social character and effect. Military training, transition to adulthood, wedding, mystic initiation, athletic victory, communal crisis, even the harvest – these are all contexts important enough for the well-being of the community to require that the dancing embody (imitate) the human qualities needed for that well-being. For the community, ritual is always positive. But dancing outside ritual context or crisis, dance performed exclu- sively for entertainment, is likely to be more widely and variously imitative. The symposiatic dances described by Xenophon imitate hoops, the Graces, Seasons and Nymphs, and the sexual union of Dionysus and Ariadne. And from such merely entertaining imitation emerges the taste for pictures in the dance, which may tend to dissolve the unity of words, music and song: Xenophon, we remember, writes of a dance containing ‘figures in which Graces and Seasons and Nymphs are painted’, and during the embraces of Dionysus and Ariadne ‘there were many figures (scheˆmata) to behold’. It is uncertain whether the word ‘scheˆmata’ here refers to specific movements, or whether it means what it will later be defined as in Plutarch, i.e. still positions representing e.g. ‘Apollo or Pan or a Bacchant . . . like figures in a picture’. But in either case, the dance is conceptualized as consisting of discrete temporal components.  

Tragedy and pantomime share subject-matter but differ profoundly in performance. Dance in pantomime is separated from the tragic unity of words, music, and song. That tragic unity was, as we have seen, inherited from tradi- tional genres of danced song performed in socially significant ritual contexts associated with myths. After their absorption into tragedy the danced songs retained – at least in the fifth century BC – their association with the ritual contexts and with socially significant myths. At the opposite extreme, in the pantomime, the emotional and aesthetic power of dance belongs not to the group but to the imitative ability of an individual body (the pantomimos, ‘imitator of everything’). Myth now embodies not social contradictions but emotional or pictorial moments. The auditorium is vast, but the separation of dance from ritual context and social significance is complete." [The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre]

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Personal dance developments and insights 610

"ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν." [Heraclitus]

"All that exists is just and unjust and equally justified in both." [Aeschylus, Prometheus]

"The history of everyday is constituted by our habits. ... How have you lived today?" [N.]

*Become clean, my friends.*
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_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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A superb singer who understands the connection between music and dance.


_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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Do you have enough cash to get back home?

The dance imitating the drunken state, Dionysian surfing on Apollonian absolutes.



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γνῶθι σεαυτόν
μηδέν άγαν
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
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Age : 30
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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyTue Jun 30, 2015 5:36 pm

I just returned today; I was a little concerned when the ATM's were out of use for some time yesterday but that was because the local people panicked the night before. All well.

To dance this dance is all about the atmosphere inter-connected with your feelings; though alcohol will help to create your personal bubble regardless of sober perception. I will be uplouding one of my Zeibekiko any time soon (someone had filmed it) - but the best one was to share the space with my teacher, respecting and applauding each other's dance, it is the connection.

_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
Join date : 2013-10-26
Age : 30
Location : Land of Dance and Song

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyTue Jun 30, 2015 5:42 pm

Satyr wrote:
Dionysian surfing on Apollonian absolutes.

You mean Dionysus being drunken within through (personal) atmosphere, music and dance and the alcohol itself; to 'stumble' upon Appolo's rhythm of nine - don't you dare to step out of the rhythm.

_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
Join date : 2013-10-26
Age : 30
Location : Land of Dance and Song

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyFri Jul 10, 2015 3:35 pm



Quote :
A Greek improvisational dramatic solo dance for men. Its name comes from Zeybeks people of Asia Minor. The dancer is surrounded by other people, who kneel and clap to him. It is a renowned dance for "mangas", the macho archetype in the Greek poetry of masculinity.




Quote :
Zeibekiko or Zeimpekiko is a one of the most popular Greek folk dances.

The origin of the name has not been yet clarified. Some traditions say that it derived from Zeibek warriors of Anatolia, but old folklore said that the name of the dance comes from the words Zei, as a derivative of Greek God Zeus, and the phrygian word bekos, which means bread according to Herodotus.

zeibekiko dance

According to this folk etymology, it symbolizes the union of the spirit with the body and it is believed that it was danced in honor of Greek gods.

It is the “lonely mourning” dance, a dance with no steps but with extremely intense emotions and feelings that the dancer should understand, respect and express in a restricted space. The hands are usually open symbolizing the wings of an eagle, the freedom from all pain and worries.



In the early years Zeibekiko expressed the unfulfilled expectations.

The despair in life.

The dream that never came true.

The pain that comes from within.

It was the dancing “expression of defeat”.

It is never danced as a show off, only as an expression of feelings. When all problems surface they can be tamed only with a Zeibekiko! The dancer has no fear to reveal his pain and his weakness at that very moment. The lyrics express in a way his personal experiences, therefore the dancer carefully chooses the song and then improvises the steps with dignity and respect.

Although in older times the dance was danced by a pair, it has been evolved a solo dance strictly masculine and is considered inzeibekiko some cases offensive to be interrupted by another dancer. Traditionally, applause was not sought nor commonly given by spectators out of respect to the dancer, but lately it is a common reaction by the close friends of the dancer to make a circle around him and applause.

In recent years zeibekiko has adopted many parts of the modern lifestyle and became more popular among the people. Women dance it too and sometimes dancers are performing feats such as dancing around a glass of wine or a chair, or picking up a table with their teeth.



http://www.easygnosis.com/blog/2014/12/zeibekiko-lonely-mourning-dance/

_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyMon Sep 14, 2015 10:58 am



You have to be Hellen in spirit to understand the dance, Zeibekiko; I have already showed it to a few and they simply do no understand and cannot appreciate the beauty and 'to be in yourself' - this is why my Greek dancing teacher I think, liked me so much (and vice versa for we share the passion); because I showed dedication to learn, understand and put my own piece of spirit in it beside the rules of rhythm and fundamental movements which are the spirit of the dance itself.
He told me he regarded me as an son, the highest respect - if I think about it, the only dance I am good in will ever be Zeibekiko if only I learn better to understand the rhythm of other variants of the music expres​sion(beside Evdokian branches); the other 'students', mainly middle aged Dutch women who go for the thee party rather the dance, what do they grasp of it, what can they appreciate, they do not understand the freedom of this dance not even after years and so won't many other people of all ages, they cannot appreciate for they do not understand this spirit.

Ah well, so it goes for many other dances too; what can I understand..

I go to the sea with the stars and moon shining upon the serene water, giving me light, I put in my earphones and dance Zeibekiko.


_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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Satyr
Daemon
Satyr

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyMon Sep 14, 2015 12:43 pm

To get into the spirit of the dance you must discover the joy in suffering; the ecstasy of misery.

Think of it as a man, a mortal creature, dancing to his inevitable end.
The joy of being here, now, alive, knowing you will be dead at some future time.

Pure Dionysian.

_________________
γνῶθι σεαυτόν
μηδέν άγαν
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyMon Sep 14, 2015 2:10 pm

Satyr wrote:
To get into the spirit of the dance you must discover the joy in suffering; the ecstasy of misery.

Think of it as a man, a mortal creature, dancing to his inevitable end.
The joy of being here, now, alive, knowing you will be dead at some future time.

Pure Dionysian.


I guess hence the often said '' life is like a dance / dance of life'' (though replaced with ''like a game'' recently) - if you are not willing to take upon you the carelessness of 'to be seen', 'to be judged', then how you can live; then how you dare to take chances upon you, risks.

If I think about how you say it it adds to what I wrote at the other topic, to embrace death in the manner of embracing life. I die anyway so I have to be able to leave everything behind, as long you can direct your will unlike the hedonists.
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyThu Sep 17, 2015 8:22 pm

Dance’s Libation

The swift-footed dancers, Lezginka and Sukhishvilli with so much energy, each time they pour water on the floor, thirsty they may be after exhausting dance, they honour their ancestors and forgotten gods. Rather they dance with swift feet than to drink and stand alongside the line in all comfort, for what is this comfort but crippled mind or legs. Each emptied bottle of water, each poured bit of drinking fulfilment, is an libation to their past, their ancestors, gods and an honour to themselves – an libation to dance!

_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
Join date : 2013-10-26
Age : 30
Location : Land of Dance and Song

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptySun Sep 27, 2015 2:17 pm


As with any work of art or work of measurement, the details are of great importance, for a great building to endure in balance all-eating-time or the passionate movements and combinations of a dancer to move without falling or to be harmonious to the rules of graciousness.

The detail is of such importance to dance alike a hurricane without destruction and getting off course, and the untrained eyes who behold, won’t notice the details but see it as a whole of the more obvious movements. The detail must be expressed but in a gracious manner alike a woman who does not share her wholly beauty for the all to see, for too much of expression will make the whole disharmonic alike a woman in desperate need to be seen regardless the kind of attention and the means to obtain. The detail must be naturally synchronized in the whole; it is just that you need to be conscious about it in order to learn the balance until it becomes as natural as walking.

_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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OhFortunae

OhFortunae

Gender : Male Scorpio Posts : 2311
Join date : 2013-10-26
Age : 30
Location : Land of Dance and Song

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PostSubject: Re: Personal dance developments and insights Personal dance developments and insights EmptyWed Oct 07, 2015 3:17 pm

Ode to the Dance in Rain:

The tragic feeling
feeling forsaken
dancing
in rain;
what more beautiful
than dancing
in own rhythmic
solitude.


_________________
1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born?
Say whose son thou art,
Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened,
And struck thy sword to my heart."


2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go
A motherless man abroad;
Father I had not, | as others have,
And lonely ever I live."
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