Читать книгу The Art of Ballet онлайн

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It should be noted that the Greek orcheisthai (ὀρχεῖσθαι), to dance, implied more than mere steps with the feet. It included much that goes to make a really good ballet-dancer of to-day—interpretative dancing and mimetic gesture. The Greeks in fact had some of the material, if they did not have as we know it—the Ballet.

The earliest dramatic poets, Thespis, Phrynichus, were called “dancers” because in addition to providing the drama as poets, their function was to train their choruses in the dances which, accompanied by singing, were introduced in the play.

One of the most celebrated of the actors in the plays of Æschylus, Telestes, was said not merely to indicate feelings but to “describe” events with his hands; and this, which was really miming, was considered as part of dancing, which Aristotle defined as “the representation of actions, characters and passions by means of postures and rhythmic movements.”

Plutarch analyses dancing as “Motions, Postures and Indications,” a “posture” being the attitude of the dancer at the moment of arrested movement, and an “indication,” the gesture which indicated an external object referred to in a poet’s lines, such as the sky; or such as an orator would use when raising his hand heavenward invoking the gods.