Textiles in Motion: Dress for Dance in the Ancient World [Hardback]

Dress is at the core of dance. It adorns dancers, defines various roles and forms symbolic expressions that, for example, either bind people together or opposes them. It is a communicative tool that gives crucial information for understanding the dance as well as the culture and the sociological effects of a group of people. As such, dress transcends how it is seen visually to address what is being communicated. Nonetheless, studies in ancient dance have rarely taken clothing into consideration.

Therefore, this publication gathers articles that give new perspectives and insights on ancient dances and their ancient textiles. Comprehension of ancient dance benefits from investigations undertaken through the lens of dress. And research on ancient dress is understood through its relation to body movement and performative rituals, thus reinforcing the progressive integration of an anthropological and sociological dimension into historical analysis of ancient textiles. For the first time, the two-way transfer of knowledge between dance studies and costume studies is connected via an innovative approach. Among the issues that are specifically addressed are the movement design of dress for dance, its sensory experience, gender and identity, reenactment and reception.

The chronological range of the publication is limited to the ancient world (3rd millennium BC to 5th century AD), and the geographical definition is meant to be broad in order to promote a comparative approach and cross-cultural dialogue, as well as discourse between fields and disciplines.

1. Introduction.

A. Gouy

2. Practical pPerspectives on dDance and Cclothing.

E. W. Barber

3. The whirling dance of Baukis: reinterpreting our sources.

E. Miramontes Seijas

4. Soft cloth and sounding jewellery – soundfields of rich women in Eastern Hallstatt Culture.

K. Grömer and B. M. Pomberger

5. Meroitic dDress for dDance.

C. Azzalin

6. Dancing in flames –- fabulous designs from the desert sands –- a new research method reveals Central Asian skirts construction secret.

U. Beck

7. Dancing on the goddess dress: choral and musical performances on cult images in the ancient Greek world.

A. Bellia

8. Fashioning sSensescapes in Ancient Egyptian dDance.

J. Galczynski and R. Price

9. From Egyptologist to sShow dDancer – rRe-enacting Ancient Egyptian dDances at the bBeginning of the 20th cCentury.

G. B. Heiter

10. Dance and mMetatheatre in Menader’s Theophoroumene.

E. Keramari

11. Dance and cClothing in Ancient Egypt – the earliest evidence.

H. Köpp-Junk

12. Dresses for dDancing at the Sanctuary of Despotiko.

Y. Kourayos and E. Angliker

13. (Re)imagining, (rRe)considering and (rRe)moving tTextiles: dDance and mMotion in the mMaking.

H. Mallon

14. Dressed for dDance? The short pleated dress during the dance in the 5th century BC.

J. Müller

15. The unhellenic attire of choruses as image of the ‘“other”’ in ancient Greek tragedy.

L. Papadopoulos

16. Shimmering cClothes and pPretty cCrowns: nNight dDances in Bronze Age Knossos.

R. Pierini

17. ‘Wearing tTattoos’ in Ancient Egypt.

E. Rapisarda

18. Flowing dDresses for eEcstatic dDances: tThe sSensory eExperience of dDressing and dDancing in the aAncient mMystery cCults.

A.-I. Rassia

19. The Dress of the Dancing Lares.

A. Sofroniew