description | the role of the Chorus | the elements | thesmophoria | the music | the performers

Interactions between Chorus and the performers

Diagram for the spatial arragment of the Garden performance. Below, the ancient Greek Theater diagram with Orchestra, Theatron, Skene and Parodos. \

The movement of the performer in space is not determined by his will but its trajectory in space is under constant diamorphosis by the Chorus. Like a drawing that consists of only one line, the trjectories of the performers can be connected to the Chorus' will. The trace of the performers' moves would look like a non-predetermined sketch which though obeys to certain parameters of the software. Parameters of the software:

1. non trace coverage; each movement is based on a genetic algorithm, without coming to the same spatial point twice.

2. all performers keep their autonomy within the performance as they try to follow also the pre -written actions (to hide silicone sculptures in the sulphuric ground, to throw glass sculptures etc).

Schlemmer's stage diagram for Gesture Dance,Bauhaus 1926

Chorus and the sound synthesis of the performance

'Music is sound, that is, movement. The goal is to bring sound itself to life.'
Xenakis, in Balint Andras Varga, Gesprache mit Iannis Xenakis, trans. Peter Hoffmann. p.62.

the sound synthesis consists of three sound layers:

1. the background 'environmental' synthesis, based on the DNA sequences of the mutant fruitflies.

2. the male foreground synthesis based on the thermal scanning of space. Thermal outputs are transformed to skirl(=διαπεραστικός) real-time sounds

3. the female chorus, consisting of seven women which periodically sing a synthesis based on abuses.

The movements of the performers as determined by the Chorus by indicating movement trajectories through the computer:the musical output of the chorus is transformed to moving suggestions to the performers. Every time the chorus sings, the computer takes the input data and draws trajectories for the performers which last for 20 minutes.

Joyce connects the tragic emotion with the terms 'terror' and 'pity':

...Stephen repeated the definitions slowly.
A girl got into a hansom a few days ago, he went on, in London. She was on her way to meet her mother whom she had not seen for many years. At the corner of a street the shaft of a lorry shivered the window of the hansom in the shape of a star. A long fine needle of the shivered glass pierced her heart. She died on the instant. The reporter called it a tragic death. It is not. It is remote from terror and pity according to the terms of my definitions.The tragic emotion, in fact, is a face looking two ways, towards terror and towards pity, both of which are phases of it. You see I use the word ARREST. I mean that the tragic emotion is static. Or rather the dramatic emotion is. The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. The arts which excite them, pornographical or didactic, are therefore improper arts. The esthetic emotion (I used the general term) is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing. (James Joyce, A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

Rimbaud' s attempt for a new language as seen at the "Un saison en Enfer" :

...je croyais a tous les enchantements.J' inventai la couleur des voyelles!- A noir, E blanc, I rouge, O bleu, U vert.-Je reglai la forme et la mouvement de chaque consonne, et, avec des rhythmes instinctifs,je me flattai d' inventer un verbe poetique accessible, un jour ou l' autre, a tous les sens. Je reservais la traduction.
Ce fut d' abord une etude. J'ecrivais des silences, des nuits, je notais l' inexprimable. Je fixais des vertiges.

Plus de mots. J' ensevelis les morts dans mon ventre. Cris, tambour, danse,danse, danse, danse!Je ne vois meme pas l; heure ou, les blancs debarquant, je tomberai au neant. Faim, soif, cris, danse, danse, danse, danse!

Arthur Rimbaud, "Un saison en Enfer"

THE THESMOPHORIAZUSAE, by Aristophanes
(410 BC)
CHORUS OF THESMOPHORIAZUSAE-Women
celebrating the THESMOPHORIA

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Let us now devote ourselves to the sports which the women are
accustomed to celebrate here, when time has again brought round the
mighty Mysteries of the great goddesses, the sacred days which
Pauson himself honours by fasting and would wish feast to succeed
feast, that he might keep them all holy. Spring forward with a light
step, whirling in mazy circles; let your hands interlace, let the
eager and rapid dancers sway to the music and glance on every side
as they move.
CHORUS (singing)
Let the chorus sing likewise and praise the Olympian gods in their
pious transport. It's wrong to suppose that, because I am a woman
and in this temple, I am going to speak ill of men; but since we
want something fresh, we are going through the rhythmic steps of the
round dance for the first time.
Start off while you sing to the god of the lyre and to the
chaste goddess armed with the bow. Hail I thou god who flingest thy
darts so far, grant us the victory! The homage of our song is also due
to Here, the goddess of marriage, who interests herself in every
chorus and guards the approach to the nuptial couch. I also pray
Hermes, the god of the shepherds, and Pan and the beloved Graces to
bestow a benevolent smile upon our songs.
Let us lead off anew, let us double our zeal during our solemn
days, and especially let us observe a close fast; let us form fresh
measures that keep good time, and may our songs resound to the very
heavens. Do thou, oh divine Bacchus, who art crowned with ivy,
direct our chorus; 'tis to thee that both my hymns and my dances are
dedicated; oh, Evius, oh, Bromius, oh, thou son of Semeld, oh,
Bacchus, who delightest to mingle with the dear choruses of the nymphs
upon the mountains, and who repeatest, while dancing with them, the
sacred hymn, Euios, Euios, Euoi! Echo, the nymph of Cithaeron, returns
thy words, which resound beneath the dark vaults of the thick
foliage and in the midst of the rocks of the forest; the ivy enlaces
thy brow with its tendrils charged with flowers.

CHORUS (singing)
Oh! Pallas, who art fond of dances, hasten hither at my call.
Oh! thou chaste virgin, the protectress of Athens, I call thee in
accordance with the sacred rites, thee, whose evident protection we
adore and who keepest the keys of our city in thy hands. Do thou
appear, thou whose just hatred has overturned our tyrants. The
womenfolk are calling thee; hasten hither at their bidding along
with Peace, who shall restore the festivals. And ye, august goddesses,
display a smiling and propitious countenance to our gaze; come into
your sacred grove, the entry to which is forbidden to men; 'tis
there in the midst of the sacred orgies that we contemplate your
divine features. Come, appear, we pray it of you, oh, venerable
Thesmophorae! Is you have ever answered our appeal, oh! come into
our midst.

Fragment 14: Clement, Protreptique. 22, 2
Night-walkers, Magians, priests of Bakchos and priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers practised among men.

For if it were not to Dionysos that they made a procession and sang the shameful phallic hymn, they would be acting most shamelessly. But Hades is the same as Dionysos in whose honour they go mad and keep the feast of the winevat.

Structure of a Greek tragedy (by Walter Englert). After a prologue spoken by one or more characters, the chorus enters, singing and dancing. Scenes then alternate between spoken sections (dialogue between characters, and between characters and chorus) and sung sections (during which the chorus danced). Here are the basic parts of a Greek Tragedy:

a. Prologue: Spoken by one or two characters before the chorus appears. The prologue usually gives the mythological background necessary for understanding the events of the play.

b. Parodos: This is the song sung by the chorus as it first enters the orchestra and dances.

c. First Episode: This is the first of many "episodes", when the characters and chorus talk.

d. First Stasimon: At the end of each episode, the other characters usually leave the stage and the chorus dances and sings a stasimon, or choral ode. The ode usually reflects on the things said and done in the episodes, and puts it into some kind of larger mythological framework.

For the rest of the play, there is alternation between episodes and stasima, until the final scene, called the exodos

e. Exodos: At the end of play, the chorus exits singing a processional song which usually offers words of wisdom related to the actions and outcome of the play.

Machinery used in ancient greek theatre

Inside the permanent scene were kept the machines used for the performance:

* a) The Aeorema: It was a crane by which the gods were appearing on the scene (deus ex machina). It is wrong (but frequently written) that in ancient greek that machine was called "geranos". Geranos is the translation in modern greek of the word "crane".
* b) The Periactoi:Two prismatic pillars, put on the left and right side of the scene, turning around their axon, they changed the background of the scene.
* c)The Ekeclema: a wheeled-plattform on which bodies of dead persons werepresented (because a murder or a suicide never takes place in front of the spectators).

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Structure of Euripides' Bacchae (based on chart from S. Esposito)