Aeschylean Moments

Passages from Aeschylus' Agamemnon, performed in Ancient Greek following A. P. David's new theory of the Greek accent. Choreography based on ancient vase paintings and statuary, by Miriam Rother. Performers' credits for the Choreía Mousôn projects, St. John's College, Annapolis, 2001-3. See http://danceofthemuses.org

Category:

Education

Tags:

• humanities
• performing
• arts
• Aeschylus
• Clytemnestra
• dance
• Ancient
• Greek
• tragedy
• Dance
• of
• the
• Muses
• chorus

[Rearda]

This was a powerful performance, even to the uninitiated. Interesting that someone's researching accents. I suppose that ancient Greek, like most languages, had an accent for the elite that would have been used for this sort of stuff and that separated the elite from the hoipoloi (my husband's Cypriot, and many Greeks have asked him if he's from Rhodes - evidently the accent's similar; heavily lenited). Did the choreography draw on Ruby Ginner's research at all?

[amirthanayagamdavid]

@Rearda To the best of my knowledge, the ancient tonal accent was universal and not class specific, as at home in Aristophanes' low-brow humour as in Homer and tragedy. There is good evidence for this. The choreography was devised by Miriam Rother exclusively from imagery on ancient vases and statuary (pre-Hellenistic). I am not aware that she was influenced by anyone. Cheers--David

[kakosuranosx]

Oi aristoi logoi twn aristwn (The wise speech of a wise man). ;)

[schroeder711]

This is magnificent.