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

Fiona Macintosh became Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama in January 2010, after ten years as Senior Research Fellow. In 2008 she was made Reader in Greek and Roman Drama. She is currently Supernumerary Fellow of St Hilda's College and University Lecturer in the Reception of Greek and Roman Literature. She is author of Dying Acts: Death in Ancient Greek and Modern Irish Tragic Drama (1994; 1995), Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre 1660-1914 (Oxford University Press; 2005), and Sophocles' 'Oedipus Tyrannus' (2009). She has co-edited numerous APGRD publications: Dionysus Since 69 (with Edith Hall and Amanda Wrigley) (Oxford University Press; 2004), Agamemnon in Performance 458BC to AD2005 (with Pantelis Michelakis, Edith Hall, and Oliver Taplin) (Oxford University Press; 2005).

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