Open AccessBefore the Première: Recording the Performance of Ancient Greek Drama
Author(s) -
Eleonora Rocconi
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
dramaturgias
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2525-9105
DOI - 10.26512/dramaturgias.v0i5.8103
Subject(s) - performative utterance , melody , drama , dance , spectacle , performativity , literature , gesture , art , character (mathematics) , ancient greek , code (set theory) , visual arts , linguistics , history , aesthetics , computer science , musical , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , set (abstract data type) , economics , market economy , programming language
Ancient Greek theatre, a multimedia spectacle (originally conceived for a unique performance) which involved words, music, gestures, and dance, has always been a challenge for scholars investigating its original performance. This paper explores the possibilities of the performative elements of the plays to be recorded during their theatrical staging, that is, before their première. More in detail, it examines the probability that — given the rhythmic and melodic nature of ancient Greek language and the descriptive and/or perlocutionary character of the scenic information within the texts — the authors could inscribe music and gestural expressiveness into the linguistic code. The high level of ‘performativity’ implied in these ancient texts probably delayed the need for a technology that could record their different multimedia components.