The first systematic study of the impact of ideas about ancient Greek and Roman dance on modern theatrical and choreographic practices. With contributions from experts in a range of fields, the volume presents a wide conspectus on an under-explored but central aspect of classical reception, dance and theatre history, and the history of ideas.

Introduction ; I. DANCE AND THE ANCIENT SOURCES ; 1. Dead but not Extinct: On Reinventing Pantomime Dancing in Eighteenth-Century England and France ; 2. 'In Search of a Dead Rat': The Reception of Ancient Greek Dance in Late Nineteenth-Century Europe and America ; 3. The Tanagra Effect: Wrapping the Modern Body in the Folds of Ancient Greece ; 4. Reception or Deception? Approaching Dance through Vase-Painting ; 5. A Pylades for the twentieth century: Fred Astaire and the Aesthetic of Bodily Eloquence ; II. DANCE AND DECADENCE ; 6. 'Where there is Dance there is the Devil': Ancient and Modern Representations of Salome ; 7. 'Heroes of the Dance Floor': The Missing Exemplary Male Dancer in the Ancient Sources ; 8. Servile Bodies? The Status of the Professional Dancer in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries ; 9. Dancing Maenads in Early Twentieth-Century Britain ; III. DANCE AND MYTH ; 10. Ancient Greece, Dance and the English Masque ; 11. Dancing with Prometheus: Performance and Spectacle in the 1920s ; 12. From Duncan to Bausch with Iphigenia ; 13. Ancient Myths and Modern Moves: The Greek-Inspired Dance Theatre of Martha Graham ; 14. Iphigenia, Orpheus and Eurydice in the Human Narrative of Pina Bausch ; IV. ANCIENT DANCE AND THE MODERN MIND ; 15. Knowing the Dancer, Knowing the Dance: The Dancer as Decor ; 16. Modernism and Dance: Apollonian or Dionysian? ; 17. Dance, Psychoanalysis and Modernist Aesthetics: Martha Graham's 'Night Journey' ; 18. Striking a Balance: The Apolline and Dionysiac in Post-Classical Choreography ; 19. Caryl Churchill and Ian Spink 'allowing the past to speak directly to the present' ; V. THE ANCIENT CHORUS IN CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE ; 20. Staniewski's Secret Alphabet of Gestures: Dance, Body and Metaphysics ; 21. Gesamtkunstwerk: Modern Moves and the Ancient Chorus ; 22. Red Ladies : Who are they and what do they want?

An essential complement to the new, performance-based study of ancient theatre Lavishly illustrated, with many rare archive photographs Traces a wealth of classical influences upon modern dance, from Fred Astaire to Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham

An essential complement to the new, performance-based study of ancient theatre Lavishly illustrated, with many rare archive photographs Traces a wealth of classical influences upon modern dance, from Fred Astaire to Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham