[δεκατέσσερα]
Let's talk of something of great social and cultural import. Dancing. Dance, along with writing, music, and physical exercise, was basic to the education system and I cannot extol enough its virtues as a means of cultivating both body and, if you're into such concepts, soul. So important, in fact, is dancing, that in Arcadia-- a place where I spent some chunk of very enjoyable time --the expenses of teaching singing and dancing to the young men were met from the civic purse. In exchange for this schooling, our nubile pupils in question staged annual displays of their recently accomplished physical skills, which all proper citizens attended. Such high regard was dancing held in that eminent citizens were referred to as protorchesteres, or lead dancers. Hell, in Sparta, physical exercise was tantamount to a political creed, and these men danced mainly beautiful, masculine martial dances. The Spartans not only danced before battles, they also fought with rhythmic movements to the strains of pipes.
The famous general Epameinondas-- fun to look at, less to hit on --had received such lessons in Thebes and was a talented flautist (although nowhere near my own expert level with any kind of flute, if you know what I mean,) lyre-player and, like the tragic and tragically bad in bed poet Sophocles, an accomplished singer and dancer. Truly, a man who cannot dance is uneducated and unrefined, while an accomplished dancer is the epitome of a cultured man. Plato, the dumb repressed bastard himself, strongly urged that girls should be taught the same dance movements as the boys stressing that their teacher should be a fine woman and her instruction not tempered with the Spartan's sharp severity.
Just as dance should be a physical pleasure to perform, it should be a pleasure to admire. The joyous rhythm which binds together; a harmony more than personal; the sinuous plasticity of the body; movements that arise from an inner compulsion and accord with the laws of raw nature and the dancer’s own body.
Now, who wants to practice?
The famous general Epameinondas-- fun to look at, less to hit on --had received such lessons in Thebes and was a talented flautist (although nowhere near my own expert level with any kind of flute, if you know what I mean,) lyre-player and, like the tragic and tragically bad in bed poet Sophocles, an accomplished singer and dancer. Truly, a man who cannot dance is uneducated and unrefined, while an accomplished dancer is the epitome of a cultured man. Plato, the dumb repressed bastard himself, strongly urged that girls should be taught the same dance movements as the boys stressing that their teacher should be a fine woman and her instruction not tempered with the Spartan's sharp severity.
Just as dance should be a physical pleasure to perform, it should be a pleasure to admire. The joyous rhythm which binds together; a harmony more than personal; the sinuous plasticity of the body; movements that arise from an inner compulsion and accord with the laws of raw nature and the dancer’s own body.
Now, who wants to practice?