Dance in Attic and Argive Geometric Pottery: figurative Imagery and ritual Contexts

At the dawn of the images in Greek Geometric pottery, starting from ca. the middle of the 8th century BC, the theme of the dance is often represented as one of the community’s central mechanism. The present article focuses on the rich corpus of representations of dance and musical performance on Attic and Argive pottery from ca. 750 until 675 BC. On Attic pottery an early phase of these representations (ca. 750-720 BC) focuses on the initiatory character of dance, which preludes to the marriage, and on its agonistic aspects. The later phase, ca. 720-675 BC, shifts on the choroi of parthenoi which were educated in the system of the polis. These latter scenes seem to anticipate, in the dualism between the choros of adolescents and the musician/choregos, the mechanisms of the partheneia, that are known by Alcman’s compositions onwards. Argive representations focus on the prenuptial character of the dance, possibly with reference to the rituals of initiation during Hera’s festivals. In general, the theme of dance in Greek Geometric pottery draws the attention to the world of the females with reference to the class ages, the education, the prelude of the marriage as well as the agonistic components.