DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68796#0067
chap, ii The Posture-dance
47
their persons and also of good discipline.’1 Greek feeling
for decorum forbade anything sudden or strained in gesture,
and as much care was taken over the composition of the
limbs of the dancer as the statuary expends on the artistic
arrangement of his figure. The studied posture-dance was
thus a more advanced form of art than the mere rhythmi-
cal swing of limb and body, and was held by the Greeks to
Fig. io.—Dance of armed youth, from a Greek Vase.
have a high educational value for the performer. Thus the
primitive romp and caper of armed youths was taken up
and systematised, under the name of the Pyrrhic dance,
at Sparta, where it was used as an exercise for war, and
consisted of feigned attack and defence and the like, all
executed in time to music (Fig. io). The Spartan boys had
their special dance (called gymnopaedika) which they per-
formed naked with movements of the whole frame accord-
1 A then sens, ibid. §25.
47
their persons and also of good discipline.’1 Greek feeling
for decorum forbade anything sudden or strained in gesture,
and as much care was taken over the composition of the
limbs of the dancer as the statuary expends on the artistic
arrangement of his figure. The studied posture-dance was
thus a more advanced form of art than the mere rhythmi-
cal swing of limb and body, and was held by the Greeks to
Fig. io.—Dance of armed youth, from a Greek Vase.
have a high educational value for the performer. Thus the
primitive romp and caper of armed youths was taken up
and systematised, under the name of the Pyrrhic dance,
at Sparta, where it was used as an exercise for war, and
consisted of feigned attack and defence and the like, all
executed in time to music (Fig. io). The Spartan boys had
their special dance (called gymnopaedika) which they per-
formed naked with movements of the whole frame accord-
1 A then sens, ibid. §25.