Trustees of Boston University "Why Should I Dance?": Choral Self-Referentiality in Greek Tragedy Author(s): Albert Henrichs Source: Arion, Third Series, Vol. 3, No. 1, The Chorus in Greek Tragedy and Culture, One (Fall, 1994 - Winter, 1995), pp. 56-111 Published by: Trustees of Boston University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163565 . Accessed: 06/11/2014 16:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Trustees of Boston University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Arion. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 140.247.80.84 on Thu, 6 Nov 2014 16:39:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Why Should IDance?": Choral Self-Referentiality inGreek Tragedy ALBERTHENRICHS How can we know the dancer from the dance? ?Yeats was An the beginning, there the "chorus"?a collec tive of khoreutai performing the dance-song {khoreia).1 Greek musical culture is defined by khoroi whose performance combines song and dance, a feature which characterizes numerous forms of cultic poetry and which choral lyric, whether cultic or not, shares with drama. The polymorphous Dionysiac chorus forms the nucleus of Greek comedy and satyr-play, in historical as well as structural terms. But what about tragedy? How strong are its Dio nysiac credentials? Should we give credence to the anonymous Hel lenistic wit who declared that tragedy had "nothing to do with Dionysos" (ou??v jtq?? t?v Ai?vuoov)?2 a On the contrary, Dionysos is very prominent in large number of extant tragedies, in Sophocles no less than in Aeschylus or Euripides, but the complexity of his presence within the dramatic and religious structures of these plays has only recently begun to receive the attention it deserves. For the past two hundred years, the vast majority of scholars interested in Attic tragedy and its antecedents has proceeded on the plausible assumption that the tragic chorus, like the chorus of comedy and satyr-play, originated in choral performances connected with the cult of Dionysos.3 Many scholars believed, with Aristotle and Nietzsche, that Dio nysos had more to do with the question of origins and with the primitive archetype of the tragic chorus than with the full-fledged as we even con genre know it. In their quest for origins, they structed hypothetical rituals, which they imposed on, or extrapo lated from, extant plays. Fortunately the study of the Dionysiac dimension of tragedy has moved into an important new phase. In a recent years, the concept of ritual continuity and of tragic chorus defined as a replica of its remote ritual ancestors has been chal a to lenged by growing number of critics who prefer situate trag This content downloaded from 140.247.80.84 on Thu, 6 Nov 2014 16:39:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Albert Henrichs 57 more edy and its chorus concretely in the contemporary framework of the polis religion and of actual Dionysiac cult. In an influential article, Simon Goldhill in particular has emphasized the complex social "context for performance"?the competing civic identities of poet, performers, and audience; the conflict between the political values encoded in the "preplay ceremonials" and their problematization in the actual plays; and the polarity of Dionysos as reflected in the transgressive mood of the Dionysiac festivals, which provided the cultic setting for dramatic contests in Athens.4 to concerns More relevant my is yet another approach, that which explores the dramatic representation of Dionysos and his worship within the actual plays, as distinct from their external set ting in Dionysiac cult. Charles Segal, Froma Zeitlin, and Richard Seaford have all emphasized the ambivalence of Dionysos as a fun damental concept behind the tensions and ambiguities of certain plays.5 In a series of related studies, Renate Schlesier has focused on the role of Dionysiac ritual and of maenadic identities in the construction of dramatic character.6 Most recently, in the first treatment ever comprehensive of the presence of Dionysos in Greek tragedy, Anton Bierl has produced a cohesive synthesis inte grating the tragic Dionysos with the Dionysos of Attic cult and of theater.7 The combined work of these scholars represents a radical reassessment of the ways Dionysos and his religion are brought now into play by all three tragedians. From on, students of tragedy will have to reckon with the fact that in their efforts to connect tragedy more directly with its cultic context (and to revitalize the Dionysiac roots of Attic drama?), the tragic poets set individual as a a characters, entire plays, and indeed the tragic genre whole in distinct Dionysiac ambience. As Bierl has abundantly demon strated, this tendency gained momentum in the course of the fifth century. In Aeschylus, Dionysos is most prominent in plays that dramatize Dionysiac myth.8 Sophocles expands the Dionysiac frame of reference, but tends to confine Dionysos to choral lyr ics?a reminder of the ritual connection between choral perfor mance in tragedy and in Dionysiac cult.9 But it is not until the late plays of Euripides that the tragic Dionysos emerges as a full - fledged symbol of tragic ambiguity and dramatic self-reflex iveness.10 Far from suppressing Dionysos, as Nietzsche claimed, Euripides takes advantage of every conceivable dimension of the god and deserves to rank as the most Dionysiac of the three tragedians. This content downloaded from 140.247.80.84 on Thu, 6 Nov 2014 16:39:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 58 "WHY SHOULD IDANCE?" In this paper I propose to apply this new understanding of the to a as tragic Dionysos fundamental aspect of tragedy performa tive poetry which Bierl, Schlesier, and Segal have touched upon only tangentially, namely the intricate interplay of choral dance, as choral voice, and ritual performance. All tragic choruses sing well as dance. I am concerned with the relatively few choruses to own who, in their song, refer their dancing. Choruses who draw attention to their ritual role as collective performers of the choral dance-song in the orchestra invariably locate their performance self-reflexively within the concrete dramatic context and ritual ambience of a given play. An integral aspect of this practice is the pivotal role assigned to Dionysos in the articulation of choral identity. For lack of a better term, I call this phenomenon choral self-ref as erentiality?the self-description of the tragic chorus performer of khoreia.11 According to Goldhill, dramatic "self-reflexiveness" or "self-reflexivity" takes place when tragedy?or, for that matter, on own as comedy?reflects its raison d'?tre theater, something it achieves most poignantly in Euripides.12 Whereas Goldhill does not to aware apply this concept the chorus, Bierl is fully that choral a self-referentiality is central aspect of the larger picture of ritual, as as well "metatheatrical," self-reflexivity in Attic drama.13 own as can Choruses addressing their performance dancers be as as found in comedy and satyr-play14 well in tragedy. But self reflexivity in its various forms, including that of choral self-refer more more entiality, is common, and emphatic, in comedy than in tragedy.15 As in tragedy, self-referential comic choruses often refer to their dancing in the ritually marked context of divine invoca tion, of Dionysiac cult, or of extra-dramatic khoreia on a ritual occasion.16 to own Dramatic choruses who refer their dancing while invok ing divinities associated with khoreia?such as Apollo, Artemis, and especially Dionysos?engage in the most explicit form of rit ual self-referentiality available to them. Since some comic and as many tragic choruses perform other rituals such prayer, lament, supplication, and the conjuration of ghosts in the course of their dance-songs, the concept of ritual self-referentiality in the choral odes of Attic drama clearly possesses a much wider application than can be explored in this paper. Rites reenacted within the dra matic framework of a particular play may be perceived as "ficti tious rituals for mythical characters," but it is also the case that This content downloaded from 140.247.80.84 on Thu, 6 Nov 2014 16:39:55 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Albert Henrichs 59 every ritual performed verbally by a tragic or comic chorus takes concrete place within the ritual ambience of the dance-song.17 Choral dancing in ancient Greek culture always constitutes a form con of ritual performance, whether the dance is performed in the text of the dramatic festival or in other cultic and festive settings. The external setting in the sanctuary of Dionysos Eleuthereus and in the distinctly cultic ambience of the City Dionysia reinforces the ritual function of choral dances in tragedy. comment on own Choruses who self-referentially their perfor mance as so not as dancers do only in their capacity characters in the drama but also as performers: while emphasizing their choral as identity, they temporarily expand their role dramatic characters. a more as In fact they acquire complex dramatic identity they per ceive their choral dance as an emotional reaction to the events onstage and assume a ritual posture which functions as a link between the cultic reality of the City Dionysia and the imaginary religious world of the tragedies.