Glytzouris

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

This article was downloaded by: [Papakonstantinou, Zinon]On: 18 August 2010Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 925958126]Publisher RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Journal of the History of SportPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713672545

'Resurrecting' Ancient Bodies: The Tragic Chorus in Prometheus Boundand Suppliant Women at the Delphic Festivals in 1927 and 1930Antonis Glytzourisa

a University of Crete, Institute of Mediterranean Studies,

Online publication date: 17 August 2010

To cite this Article Glytzouris, Antonis(2010) ''Resurrecting' Ancient Bodies: The Tragic Chorus in Prometheus Bound andSuppliant Women at the Delphic Festivals in 1927 and 1930', International Journal of the History of Sport, 27: 12, 2090 —2120To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2010.495225URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2010.495225

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial orsystematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug dosesshould be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directlyor indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713672545

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2010.495225

http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

‘Resurrecting’ Ancient Bodies: TheTragic Chorus in Prometheus Boundand Suppliant Women at the DelphicFestivals in 1927 and 1930Antonis Glytzouris

This essay aims at a systematic investigation of theatre performances of Prometheus Boundand Suppliant Women at the Delphic Festivals (1927, 1930) with particular reference to

the art of dance. It attempts to analyse the artistic and ideological content of the tragicchorus such as conceived and implemented by Eva Palmer-Sikelianos. The article initially

attempts to analyse her theoretical concerns and then attempts a detailed presentation of theDelphic performances. The revival of the tragic dance acquired an aura of ‘resurrection’, in

the sense that it embodied a basic ideological component: the forging of Modern Greekidentity upon alleged hereditary relations of ‘affinity’ between the ancient Greece and theModern Greek folk culture. In order to illuminate this objective, the essay also examines:

(a) similar approaches attempted in the Modern Greek stage from the end of thenineteenth century, (b) the Neo-Romantic roots of the initiative and (c) instances of

American lovers of ancient and traditional Greece in the first quarter of the twentiethcentury.

1.

The modern Delphic festivals were organized for the first time by the Greek poet

Angelos Sikelianos and his American wife Eva Palmer-Sikelianos in May 1927 at thearchaeological site of Delphi in central Greece. In antiquity, the site had functioned as

an oracle sanctuary dedicated to god Apollo and venue of the Pythian games, that is,the most prestigious after the Olympics athletic games in the ancient world. The

modern festivals articulated the grand visions of the poet, dubbed ‘Delphic Idea’, asexpressed in numerous lectures and publications since the early 1920s. [1] The

objective of Sikelianos’ Delphic enterprise was to make Delphi once again the ‘navel

Antonis Glytzouris, University of Crete, Institute of Mediterranean Studies.Correspondence to: [email protected]

The International Journal of the History of SportVol. 27, No. 12, August 2010, 2090–2120

ISSN 0952-3367 (print)/ISSN 1743-9035 (online) � 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/09523367.2010.495225

Downloaded By: [Papakonstantinou, Zinon] At: 12:24 18 August 2010

of the earth’ (it was reputed to be so in antiquity) through the establishment of a newworld organization with Delphi as the headquarters, as well as through the

foundation of a Delphic University. The revival of facets of ancient Greek culture wascentral in Sikelianos’ Delphic Idea: it was perceived as the means for the intellectual

salvation of the human race worldwide. In this lofty effort modern Greece, as theperceived successor of ancient Greece, was to play a leading role.

The first modern Delphic festivals lasted two days (9–10 May 1927). The programof the first day consisted of a tour at the archaeological site, modern Greek folk music

performances, a presentation of the Hymn to Apollo and a performance of Aeschylus’Prometheus Bound in the ancient theatre of Delphi. The second day consisted of amodern Greek folk art exhibit, a lecture by the German archaeologist Wilhelm

Dorpfeld entitled ‘On Ancient Theatre’ as well as athletic competitions in the contextof which amateur dancers, wearing reproductions of ancient armour, performed the

ancient Greek dance ‘pyrrichios’. The activities of the second day were concluded earlyin the evening with a Byzantine music concert, a performance in dance form of the

ancient Greek myth of the fight between Apollo and the Python, a repeatperformance of the Hymn to Apollo as well as a torch-relay conducted in the

Sacred Way by athletes. [2]The first Delphic festivals received wide publicity at home and abroad. As a result,

they were eagerly repeated in 1930, this time complete with a dynamic advertisingcampaign. Besides Eva Palmer-Sikelianos, who incurred all the expenses for the 1927festival, the state Greek Tourism Organization as well as a number of private sponsors

contributed financially. The expanded second Delphic festival commenced on 1 May1930 with a tour of the archaeological site, followed by a performance of Aeschylus’

Prometheus Bound (incorporating different actors and a new stage set, compared tothe 1927 performance of the same play). The day was concluded with the customary

presentation of the Hymn to Apollo. The second day included a modern Greek folkart exhibit, a performance of Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women as well as a lecture by

Sikelianos himself ‘On the Delphic Enterprise’. The Pythian athletic games, dedicatedto the warriors of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, were conducted on thethird day, followed by a performance of the pyrrhichios dance. It should be noted that

according to the official program, ‘during meals villagers will sing folk bandit songs,accompanied by the music of local instruments’. The entire program of the second

Delphic festival was repeated twice (6–8 and 11–13 May). However, the Sikelianos’efforts to permanently establish the Delphic festival proved to be in vain. Following

the 1930 festival Eva Palmer-Sikelianos, the main financial sponsor of the events, hadgone bankrupt. Soon afterwards, she returned to the United States in 1933. [3]

2.

This paper will focus on a specific aspect of the Delphic festivals of 1927 and 1930,that is, the revival of the tragic chorus in the Aeschylus tragedies performed at the

Delphi ancient theatre as part of the festivals in question. The set up was intimately

‘Resurrecting’ Ancient Bodies 2091


connected to a more holistic vision of the ‘resurrection’ of antiquity which,throughout the Delphic festival, positioned theatrical performances side by side with

athletic events and craft fairs. The Delphic Revival ‘pursued the course of drama, artand social thought, with athletics as pieces of a more ambitious program’. [4] Thus,

the sporting events were not separated from the theatrical performances. Similarly,the exhibition of folk-art weavings was not at odds with the Phyrric dance or the

Septeria (the symbolic dance that represented the battle of Apollo with Python). Abasic component of all these manifestations of Angelos Sikelianos’ Delphic Ideal was

the exploration of a purely ‘Greek’ expression as a clear reaction to the modernWestern culture. As Eva Palmer–Sikelianos put it in an interview to Photos Yofillis,‘everything will be shown purified from foreign elements. You will receive only what

is pure Greek: on the one hand ancient art and life and on the other popular art andlife’. [5]

The incorporation of sports at the Delphic Festivals of the 1927 constituted akind of reply to the recent revival of the Olympic Games. Sikelianos, a staunch

lover of antiquity was in this way reacting to the pernicious, as he perceived it,growth of modern mass sport. For this reason, it was prescribed that participation

in the Delphic athletic events was restricted to young villagers of the mountainParnassus area. As E. Palmer-Sikelianos wrote in 1924 in her application

requesting permission to use the ancient stadium at Delphi for the modernDelphic festivals, these amateur athletes were the original heirs of a Greekcompetitive ‘tradition’, which was maintained virtually immutable over the

centuries throughout Greece, and especially within the ‘virile people of Parnassus’;presenting the local games of the area as part of the Delphic Festivals would be

‘an excellent opportunity’ for the diffusion of the authentic Greek athletic‘tradition’. [6] In a similar way, Eva Palmer-Sikelianos rejected off-the-peg

clothing industry in favour of folk clothing as well as Swedish gymnastics whichthe then Greek director of Athletics [Ioannis Chrysafis] was promoting in the

Ministry of Education. For Eva Palmer-Sikelianos, this was a type of gymnasticswhich created ‘thousands of mechanical dolls’ in an industrial manner. [7] Hervision of athletics aimed at an idealized model athlete who, in some way

interconnected with the ancient dancer and was purified of modern degeneracy.[8] Viewed from the same perspective, Palmer-Sikelianos was also opposed to the

independence of dance as an art form – the ‘tiresome stiffness of the ballet’ – orto the undulations of the body of the modern dancer (it is typical that even in

the Pyrrhic dance she wanted ‘men with heavy armour which would force theminto movements; there could be no graceful leaps or pirouettes’). [9]

A thorough investigation of Palmer-Sikelianos’ concepts on the art of dance isdirectly related to the main theme of the present essay. Theatre performances were at

the core of the programme of Delphic events, while the remaining activities weresomewhat peripheral. Moreover, an elevation of the significance of the human ‘body’was at stake, as well as an emphasis on dance, stage-direction and costume-design. All

these issues went beyond the territory of verbal communication and tried to integrate

2092 A. Glytzouris


in a particular way this purely ‘Greek’ criticism of facets of modern culture. I believethat this shift of the centre of gravity from dramatic text to performance text had very

serious consequences for the history of modern Greek theatre as well as for otherissues related to the modern Greek ideological identity. Certainly, many aspects of the

Delphic theatre performances are of broader artistic and ideological interest.However, it is no coincidence that, as all relevant sources indicate, the most

significant event of the Sikelianos Delphic events was the revival of the tragic chorus.Moreover, all relevant sources acknowledge Eva Palmer-Sikelianos as the driving

force behind the developments related to the tragic choruses. In 1924, this Americanlover of Greek antiquity made it her goal to make choruses the ‘heart of dramaticperformances’ once more, ‘the chorus which sings and dances and expresses through

its movements all the emotion of the drama’. [10] Palmer-Sikelianos’ theatrical pastup until 1927 was exceptionally modest. [11] Her main occupations after 1907 were

learning Byzantine musical theory alongside the composer Konstantin Psachos as wellas practicing traditional weaving with the loom. [12] From 1924 until her departure

from Greece in 1933, she dedicated herself to implementing her husband’s Delphicidea.

Palmer-Sikelianos’ main approach to the ancient chorus was essentially based onan interpretation of Plato’s definition (that ‘the chorus is the unification of poetry,

music and gymnastics’) and, second, on a reference of Aristotle’s Poetics (that ‘thechorus expresses in movement the ethics, passions and actions of the actors’). Aderivative of the Aristotelian reference was her view that the ancients had, ‘a highly

developed mimetic, pantomimic power’ in chorus and that ‘they expressed entireplots through movements’. Embedded in the Platonic triad was her belief that, ‘in

ancient Greece there was no dance for its own sake’. [13] Paradoxically, the Platonicunity of the chorus predated tragedy and was an element in its creation. Eva

Sikelianos believed also that ancient Greek dance emerged and flourished during thearchaic period (ca. 800–480 BC). These views came into agreement with the deep

appreciation she harboured for Aeschylus as being closer to the archaic period thanthe other two famous tragedians of the fifth century BC, that is, Sophocles andEuripides. [14] However, Palmer-Sikelianos was negative about the contribution of

academia and in particular of scholars of ancient theatre to the issue of the revival ofthe ancient chorus. She alleged that it was not an issue for study and archaeological

precision, but rather of internal enlightenment. [15] In reality, these views were notonly related to the ancient past, but primarily to the present and future of the art of

dance. The major boom in Western dance in the first decades of the century wasimmaterial to Sikelianos since, as a whole, modern dance violated the Platonic

triptych of poetry, music and gymnastics. [16] In other words, the issue went beyondthe bounds of a simple revival of performances of ancient Greek tragedy and aimed at

forming a new art form which – based on a synthesis of Platonic elements – wouldresurrect the ancient form. [17]

Palmer-Sikelianos was certainly neither the first nor the only one who, having

started with ancient chorus, envisioned the reformation of the art of dance. At the



turn of the twentieth century, a similar undertaking had been advanced by IsadoraDuncan. The famous American dancer and advocate of the European Neo-Romantic

movement took as her starting point the view that she wanted both the ancient andthe modern man to be a product of nature and she placed the eternal ‘solar plexus’ as

the centre of his expression through dance. [18] For her compatriot Eva Palmer-Sikelianos, however, the aforementioned views did not refer to the prototype of

archaic (or even classical) Greece, but to a later period of Hellenistic decline. [19] Inher attempt to transcend this modern decadent state, Palmer-Sikelianos discovered –

after her first encounter with modern Greece – that the ancient dance could not berevived through the channels of nature but through the river of history. [20] Morespecifically, Palmer-Sikelianos, in full agreement with basic tenets of Greek folklore,

claimed that the elements of ancient Greek dance were alive in the sense that they hadbeen preserved since antiquity in the Greek countryside – which was supposedly

unaffected by modern Western civilization. [21] Thus, she argued, that in Greekvillages, ‘the dance rhythms are all ancient and unknown in European music’.

However, she also added that village dances, even if they were valuable ‘because theyshow the strength of the Greek tradition’, were ‘small relics of ancient dance on which

no new development of the art could be based’. In her opinion, contemporary Greekdances incorporated the Platonic triptych, but lacked the pantomimic dimension.

[22] The revival of ancient chorus should be based on history, but in a moreoriginal – or rather, more direct – manner.

3.

In this way, Palmer-Sikelianos attempted to find a solution to the mimetic nature ofancient chorus whilst, at the same time, forming a purely ‘Greek’ form of gymnastics

which would become the basis of the artistic expression of the dancer. For this reason,she turned to ancient pottery, relief carvings and sculptures, with the aim of bringing

their forms to life. [23] Initially, this was because they coincided chronologically withthe high-point of ancient dance, and second because they presented the figures withthe legs and head ‘de profile’, and the body ‘en face’. Palmer-Sikelianos believed that

this was not an iconographic convention but a real dance move which was laternamed by her as ‘the Apollonian movement in dance’. In this movement, the dancer

had to aspire to ‘the isolating effect of keeping the head in profile with the chest ‘enface’ which is characteristic of archaic Greek art’. [24]

The foundation for the revival of ancient chorus was music. [25] In this regard thehistorical continuity via Byzantine music was even more clearly ascertained: ‘Greek

music is ancient’, and certainly, ‘the only art form which has remained alive sinceantiquity’, the only example which clearly demonstrates, ‘that the Greece of today is

the continuation of the ancient’. [26] Byzantine musical tradition provided anotherimportant function for the revival of the Aeschylean text: ‘the unbreakableconnection between speech and music’. [27] However, there was only continuity

concerning the musical system which tradition had preserved. In other words, the

2094 A. Glytzouris


goal was not to adapt ecclesiastical hymns to the text of the tragedy, but to use onemethod which the church and the people had preserved by employing it in new

artistic creation. [28]Therefore, even though Angelos Sikelianos wanted Manolis Kalomoiris to compose

the music of Prometheus Bound, his wife reacted strongly and eventually shesucceeded in imposing the selection of Psachos. [29] Thanks to her insistence,

Psachos was pressured into writing the Prometheus score in a Byzantine-way musicnotation, offering ‘to all careful listeners the general idea of Greek music as a whole

from ancient times until our days, both as far as music and rhythms are concerned’.[30] In early 1925, Palmer-Sikelianos began to select the members of the chorus ofOceanides with girls from the Lyceum of Greek Women and then continued to

develop the choreography. [31] For this task she had the assistance of the work ofPsachos as well as the sketches, drawn by Eva Sikelianos herself and the young

sculptor Bella Raftopoulou, of pre-classical pottery iconography depicting dancingscenes. [32] More specifically, dance moves were selected from the ancient images

whenever a pose or gesture matched the essential meaning of specific words orphrases in the text. [33] Once Palmer-Sikelianos had associated every word or

phrase in poetry with the representations on pottery, she then had to put them inorder and connect them to Psachos’ music. From the spring of 1926, when she

again called the girls from the Lyceum, until early 1927, when the chorus hadcompleted its Daedalean task, Palmer-Sikelianos taught the music orally anddemonstrated specific movements for each word or phrase of Prometheus Bound.

[34]This picture is completed by the handwritten choreographic guide to Prometheus,

which is preserved at the Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens, Greece and whichconstitutes, from a historical perspective, probably the most important piece of

documentation in connection with the staging of Prometheus. [35] The figures whichhave been sketched, as well as the comments which accompany them, refer to a

pantomimic expression, dominated by gestures and bent knees while the body andhead remain, generally, rigid. [36] A comparison of the sketches which were copiedfrom ancient pottery with the notebook proves that in all cases, an effort was made to

accurately transfer body positions, as depicted in ancient vases, to the choreography.The chorus would implement the ‘Apollonian movement’ hence achieving a strict

stylization of dancing bodies: the legs and the head in a lateral position with the chesten face; a series of poses which highlight a sense of inflexibility and, in any case, not

the free and fluid expression of the body in the orchestra of the ancient theatre. Theoverall result of the intense figurativeness came both from the stylistic choices and

from the fact that the postures and gestures of the dancers were suffocatinglycalculated in their attempt to ‘resurrect’ the pottery, mimicking the literal meaning of

the words. Comparative measurements led to the unbelievable total of 285 alternateposes, something which means that each girl had to change into at least threepositions in every verse in order to render the literal meaning of each word or

phrase. [37] This highly stylized version of the chorus was also connected with the



steps involved, which were very modest during the performance and which also had apantomimic character. [38] All the above is complemented and corroborated both by

articles in contemporary press and by the visual material available: photographs ofthe performances and the film of the Delphic Prometheus by the Gaziadis brothers,

the oldest preserved modern Greek documentary which provides us with a ‘visualcode’ of priceless historical value. [39] A. D. Keramopoulos, Professor of archaeology

at the University of Athens, gives us a vivid description of the chorus performance inPrometheus:

Throughout the dialogue, namely the ‘episodes’, the chorus sat on the groundwatching the developing action. However, when its turn came, they sang, dancedand made a huge variety of movement of the body, and certainly of the hands, withthese changing at each phrase. In order to understand its work, we must compare itto modern ballet. The prima ballerina now gives us the ideal of modern dance:Huge leaps, both in height and length, spinning the body until she is dizzy and thensudden immobile postures lead to resounding applause. Dizziness is the ideal [. . .].The chorus at Delphi made no violent movements or jumps. Immediately after theaction came the music, [. . .] the chorus danced calmly to the rhythm of the song,bending their bodies in various ways, their arms, necks, the wrists of one or bothhands, this or that knee, making mimicked expressions through movements,making the meaning of the verses tangible, always in absolute agreement, formingat the same time various lines and clusters and filling the orchestra with superioraesthetic decorum [. . .] Dancing was based on numerous images from ancientworks of Greek art, statues, reliefs and paintings on pottery. I observed that theyalso mimicked well-known positions of the arms – such as those of Achermos’ Nikefound at Delos, which is a position opposed to the psychology underlying themovements and must be attributed primarily to the clumsiness of Archaic art andis not found in previous works from that period. [40]

The truth is that in the chorus of Suppliant Women, which involved far moredancers compared to Prometheus Bound, more importance was given to grouping

as well as to movements and arrangement in the orchestra. However, yet again,both reviews and photographs of the performance testify in general terms to itsintense archaic appearance, and to a succession of positions with the legs and the

head ‘de profile’ and the body ‘en face’. In all cases, witnesses speak of a‘resurrection’ of ancient Greek sculptures and Egyptian pottery or liken the dance

to an ‘archaic frieze which moves before our surprised eyes unfolding slowly like aribbon’. [41] The method of combining intense stylization and mimetic expression

of the literal meaning of the text was also followed in the Suppliant Women. [42]In this case too, this treatment of the chorus had another effect in terms of its

deployment within the orchestra. Although the performance was not given in thepicture-frame stage of the nineteenth-century theatre, the conception of the chorus

was based on lines and not on volumes. As is generally the case, the outdoortheatre was used solely for the suggestive elements of the setting, such as the echowhich was created by the Faedriades rocks, in what was again a ‘resurrection’ of

the ancient landscape. [43]

2096 A. Glytzouris


Nevertheless, almost all critics at the time recognized that for the first time in thehistory of modern Greek theatre they were seeing a disciplined tragic chorus, which

sang and danced in harmony to the verses of Aeschylus. Everyone acknowledged thatthey had attended a performance of ancient tragedy, which for the first time placed

the chorus ‘in the fullness of its elements’ at the centre of the ancient drama. Moreprecisely, the chorus was the protagonist of the Delphic performances. [44] From this

perspective, the Delphic performances constituted a turning point in the stageinterpretation of the ancient Greek drama in Greece. [45] However, the most

significant impact of the above conception of the chorus was the arbitrarydowngrading of the verses into simple acoustic and visual units and the supplantingof any interpretative attempt of the role of the chorus. The presentation of the chorus

which the spectators of the Delphic performances experienced was certainly anartistic innovation. However, the chorus episodes were almost autonomous musical-

dance events, independent from the remaining body of the performance. [46]Moreover, the text of the tragedy itself was not perceptible, since the weight fell on

pantomimic and musical-dance presentation. [47] The aestheticism which domi-nated the performance of the chorus episodes and the downgrading of the text does

not mean, however, that Palmer-Sikelianos’ approach did not rely on a specificideological position.

4.

Returning to the choreography guide to Prometheus, we notice that a differentdeployment of the chorus appears in the choreography for six lines of the third

stasimon. Moreover, the choreographic rendering of verses 887–90, inspired from themeaning of the verse (‘with those who he is related to by marriage’), proposes the

following movement: ‘like a syrtos [modern Greek folk dance], each dancer with onehand on the shoulder of the next’. This is followed by two lines with pantomime and

then, in order to render the following verses, the choreography guide indicates thatthe dancers ‘split into pairs and turn’ and ‘advance like a balos [modern Greek folkdance]’. The representation of the next verse has already been replaced by mimetic

movements, but the insertion of the balos and the syrtos is particularly significant.Here, Palmer-Sikelianos’ model did not come from ancient pottery but from

traditional Greek dances. The exceptionally brief use of folk dances is again related tothe mimetic rendition of the meaning of the verses (related by marriage, wedding)

which refers to a group expression. Moreover, the use of folk dances is not connectedso much with dance conventions as with artistic compositions which complement the

archaic-style dance moves presented in other parts of the play. Yet, the importantpoint is that a connection between the meaning of the chorus’ verses from an ancient

Greek tragedy and the modern Greek folk-dance tradition was materialized. Theevidence of the choreography guidebook on this point is corroborated by othersources as well, according to which the link between ancient literature and modern

Greek folk tradition may have been noted as the chorus entered the orchestra. [48]



Throughout the duration of the performance, ancient and modern Hellenismcertainly went hand in hand with the music of Psachos, which was another link

between the ancient and modern Greek worlds. As at all Delphic events, folkmusic and village dances by traditional folk costume-wearers accompanied

renditions of ancient dances such as the dance of Apollo with Python, or eventhe Pyrrhic dance performed at the ancient stadium at Delphi. As far as the

Pyrrhic dance is concerned, it would seem that Angelos and Eva wanted to‘resurrect’ it, but not only through the method of copying pottery. They therefore

hired the aviator Thanos Veloudios, who undertook to teach the Pyrrhic dance toselect soldiers, regarding it as a distant ancestor of the modern folk dancezeimbekikos. In order to revive it, he turned to ancient depictions but, above all, he

studied the contemporary ‘skilled folk dancers’, and was absolutely certain of thecontinuity involved:

The post-Byzantine Modern Greek rebetes [i.e. musicians who created theunderground folk musical genre of rebetiko which flourished between 1920s and1950s] and manges [i.e. dropouts of the Greek counterculture which appeared inthe first decades of the 20th-century, closely associated to the rebetes], are themystics and successors of a beautiful and glorious ‘Greekness’,

He wrote three decades later (when, of course, to a certain degree, the world ofRebetika had also become firmly established in Greek intellectual life, see Veloudios,‘Epitideigmi Pyrrihiou eis 9/8’, 125). [49] Regarding the tragic chorus in Prometheus,

it should be highlighted that the feeling was somewhat different compared to theabove-mentioned views. The 40-piece orchestra, hidden in Prometheus’ rock, or the

two solos interpreted by the operatic contralto Maria Yagkaki, suggest that, inTsarouchis’ estimate, ‘alongside the music with the pipes and drums’ which

accompanied other Delphic events, Psachos’ music ‘seems weak and somewhatLenten [anaemic]’. [50] However, no witness of the time doubts the fact that the

music of the performances used melodies and rhythms from traditional Greek music.A similar approach was also on display in the silk costumes which adorned the

bodies of the dancers. They were ‘heavy’ costumes which hindered the body when

dancing: ‘it was a difficult garment, and a heavy one, which slipped from its correctposition at every movement of the body’, recalled the leader of the chorus Koula

Pratsika later. [51] Nevertheless, it had one great advantage: with its folds, ithighlighted the stylized movement and the re-creation of the body positions taken

from ancient pottery. A traditional production process, which was known by Palmer-Sikelianos, was used to manufacture the clothing: weaving on a loom. This factor,

which sought to ‘dress’ the bodies of the members of the orchestra ideologically, wasyet again integrated into a broader vision of the convergence between ancient and

modern Greek folk cultures and complemented the folk art exhibition whichaccompanied the other events at the Delphic festivals. Certainly, Palmer’s interest incostume had begun from the bourgeois New York circles at the end of the nineteenth

century, when she bought

2098 A. Glytzouris


many yards of very expensive crepe [. . .] stuff that really came from China, but notat all like what is now called crepe de Chine. It was heavy and supple, and thereforerather good for draping in Greek folds. [52]

Later, her interests met with green-blue silken tunics in the Parisian performances ofSymbolist dramas which would lead, finally, to the Delphic Festival in their historic

maturity. [53] Palmer-Sikelianos consciously avoided archaeological accuracy in herattempt to create the costumes for the performances. Nonetheless, she ‘resurrected’ the

ancient Greek figures in a different manner: ‘I knew that the ancient Greeks weresupposed not to have silk, but I did not really care. I was not trying to be strictly correct’.The goal was to prepare ‘very elaborate dresses’ woven on a loom in such a way that the

Oceanides dancing would make a reference to Greek reliefs. [54] Through the above-mentioned Neo-Romantic European channels, and with Raymond Duncan as a very

important link, Palmer decided, after 1907, to devote herself to the art of weaving inGreek villages. [55] This traditional method of weaving was ultimately used for the

costumes in Prometheus and Suppliant Women, and therefore ‘it revived the lost foldingof ancient Greek tunics and mantles’. [56]

The issue was not therefore purely theatrical, as was also betrayed by the greatexhibition of Delphic costumes which was organized by the Metropolitan Museum of

New York in the summer of 1936. [57] From at least the beginning of the Inter-warperiod, Palmer-Sikelianos had begun to formulate opinions which supported thecreation of a ‘traditional’ Greek clothing industry. After the Delphic Festival, this was

transformed into a more coherent proposal. In her exceptionally interesting articledating in the summer of 1930, she proposed both the creation of a purely ‘Greek’

fashion in the off-the-peg clothing industry (as had happened with ‘Indian’ clothing)and the production model of small-scale ‘cottage industry’ as the basis of ‘economic

progress’. Moreover, she considered it necessary to create a national bazaar for hand-made ‘Greek’ clothing and to form a ‘national order for protecting the industry’

which would aim at attracting the interest of foreigners both in Greek antiquity andin the country’s folk culture. For aesthetic reasons, this initiative would develop a‘Greek style’ and at the same time would position the country firmly in the

international marketplace. This, again, was a more comprehensive cultural andbusiness proposition based on ‘Greekness’. [58]

5.

The intention of this essay is not, of course, to exhaustively describe the revival of the

tragic chorus at the Delphic performances, but to define its artistic and ideologicalimportance from the perspective of the aforementioned essential interpretative

stance: the ‘resurrection’ of antiquity through the nationalistic historical conceptionof Hellenism and the emphasis on the relationship of Greek antiquity with modernGreek folk traditions. In this light it might be advisable to consider the limitations in

place for a modernist revival of the tragic chorus or – more correctly – its



containment within an idealised ‘resurrection’ of ancient Greek elements whichsurvived hidden in various inaccessible corners of the Greek countryside. The

question is certainly not new, since it leads us to the first expression of folkloricinterests in the nineteenth century. Even in the theatrical sphere, Palmer-Sikelianos

was obviously not the first to think of introducing popular tradition to performancesof ancient tragedy. Music with a Byzantine motif, composed by Ioannis Sakellarides,

had already been used in performances (in ancient Greek language) by GeorgiosMistriotis since the last years of the nineteenth century. [59] A connection between

ancient Greek chorus and traditional Greek music was also noted in December 1903in an even more interesting manner. Isadora Duncan (known to Palmer-Sikelianossince the beginning of the century) danced in Athens the third stasimon of Suppliant

Women, ‘accompanied by a nasal music tone’ (i.e. in a Byzantine motif). It was sungby a 10-member black-clad choir of boys, headed by a cantor, a group which was

probably a mixture of peasants and trainee monks from the Rizareios School. [60]Leaving the Greek capital, Duncan took with her the boys choir and together they

gave performances as the chorus of Suppliant Women in Vienna and Berlin. However,the experiments into the historic revival of ancient dance quickly came to an end: the

‘Greek-Byzantine’ melodies were replaced by the chords of Wagner, and Duncan laterdescribed the attempt as ‘a glorious bubble’. [61]

It was no coincidence that Eva Sikelianos saw the aforementioned attempt as anopportunity for the dancer to understand the ‘secret’, and ‘to face’ Apollo; anopportunity, however, which she did not make the most of. [62] Nevertheless, the use

of folk Greek music in performances of ancient Greek tragedies in later years iswitnessed by performances of her brother (the brother-in-law of Angelos Sikelianos),

Raymond Duncan. [63] Since at least 1919, Vasos Kanellos (a student of Duncan)and his wife Tanagra had been combining popular music and traditional dances with

ancient Greek subjects in dance and drama performances in the United States. [64]The list grows longer if one also takes into account the plethora of as-yet unexplored

ancient dances which were performed by a host of Greek and foreign women dancersin Athens during the second decade of the twentieth century; [65] or the fact that thedances of Loie Fuller in 1914 brought thousands of spectators to the Panathenaic

Stadium. [66] The filmed reports from many celebratory events in the Inter-warperiod are perhaps even more eloquent. These capture masses of Greeks in the

Panathenaic Stadium who were thirsty for visions of the Great Idea, the ideology ofGreek irredentism, watching parades with basket bearing Athenian women, Byzantine

empresses and women peasants in folk costumes, in an illustration of all the centuriesof Hellenism. In this respect the Lyceum of Greek Women was most important as it

had formulated an ideological framework within which the co-operation withPalmer-Sikelianos later took place. The method of copying ancient pottery, for

example, had been used as early as the Anthestiria Festival in 1911, where the girls ofthe Lyceum danced folk dances in an antique-looking dress. Beginning in 1925 and inthe subsequent festivals of the Lyceum at the Panathenaic Stadium various ‘ancient

dances’ were represented and associated with syrtos and balos. [67] The first

2100 A. Glytzouris


impression from all these cases is, however, that the efforts to recreate ancient danceswere still fragmentary and incomplete. Palmer-Sikelianos’ major contribution was

primarily to bring these elements together as a whole for the first time inperformances of ancient tragedy, offering a unified theatrical experience: the

spectators of the performances at Delphi watched a tragic chorus which wore stylishsilk costumes woven in a loom, sang verses from an ancient Greek tragedy in the

modern Greek language, danced to traditional music with Byzantine motifs, assumedarchaic poses and sometimes danced the syrtos and the balos.

This achievement was important because it revealed a consistent approach to thestaging of ancient drama. In presenting these works in this way, Palmer-Sikelianoscreated an original director’s perspective which organically highlighted the idea of the

continuity of Hellenism on stage: from the Archaic period until 1927. To be precise,‘Hellenism’, without ever escaping the bounds of history, began at the same time to

formulate a transcendent, almost ‘mystical’ entity within Delphic mythology. In otherwords, it began to be formulated both as a continuation of and as the intrinsic

superiority of the Greek race. In his attempt to support the link of dances and musicin the revival of ancient tragedy, Angelos Sikelianos attempted to overcome the

conflict between Asian and Greek music, attributing the latter to a distant historicpast: ‘the body of the Greek music tradition’, he wrote in 1930, ‘is rooted in an almost

prehistoric ground, within which the Doric and Asian lyre – in other words, the Eastand real Greece – may have clashed at many points, but in the end, from the primevalOrphic years, they have been blended together naturally, organically and in technical

terms’. This was, in essence, also the reason why ‘they could write the melodies of allpeoples’ from the Danube to the Far East using Greek, Byzantine notation. For

similar reasons, the Greek dance was superior to the dances of other peoples: it was ahistoric continuation of the archetypical Greek dance of Apollo with Python, which

resulted from a Nietzschean composition. [68]As one is beginning to suspect, the Delphic revival of ancient dances did not stem so

much from the ‘Greek’ element as from a specific ideological basis which offered thesynthesis of the arts via the Platonic triad. This ideological background manifested itselfin the musical construction of the performance, the move towards the enchanting

irrationalism of the archaic age as well as the dismissal of academic tradition in thestaged revival of ancient tragedy or the handling of the performance as a religious ritual

for unifying the community by worshipping a ‘Christian’ Prometheus. When onereaches the last chapters of Palmer-Sikelianos’ autobiography, where the American lover

of antiquity recollects, around 1938, her ideological fathers – Arthur Schopenhauer,Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche and her dancing prototype, Duncan – he/she

realizes that her interpretation as a director was directly connected to the ‘fin de siecle’Symbolism and Decadence; it was a product of the Neo-Romantic and irrational

challenge to bourgeois culture, its scientism, its industrialisation, its mass modernistsociety. [69] Palmer-Sikelianos’ Neo-Romantic roots had been laid down at a young agein America, even before she became acquainted with Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. In the

period 1889–1892, she recited poetry by Edgar Allan Poe and choruses from the



tragedies of Algernon Charles Swinburne in an attempt to force language ‘beyondmelody’. [70] Furthermore, the central axis of the Delphic endeavour was the Wagner-

inspired meaning of the ‘celebratory’ event, through which theatre would again acquirethe ancient character of a collective and almost religious experience; it would again

become the magical place where the primordial myths of the community are replicated.Thus, the attempt is included in a particular branch of French Symbolist theatre and

Decadence which was led by well-known descendants of Wagnerism such as EdouardSchure and Josephin Peladan. [71] The similarities between the views of Sikelianos on

machine-made Western dress and those which were exhibited through the Arts andCrafts Movement are also interesting. The relationship has not been thoroughly studied,although Arts and Crafts was a movement which had an enormous impact (primarily in

the United Kingdom and the United States) from the last decades of the nineteenthcentury until the First World War. One of the arts promoted within this context, and

certainly in connection to the discovery of folk culture, was weaving on the loom, withperhaps the most typical case being that of Ethel Mairet. The foundations of the

movement were rooted, once again, in the idealistic Neo-Romanticism of John Ruskin,Walter Pater, William Morris and Thomas Carlyle, and flirted intently with the East

from where it received inspiration (mainly from Japan, Persia and India). [72]Finally, one should not overlook the fact that these ideas relate to a specific

historical context; an age when certain scholars, based on thinkers such as OswaldSpengler, began to seek out political solutions to the anti-parliamentarianism of‘Greek community’ and ‘community consciousness’. [73] The Delphic Idea was also

based on the ‘communalist’ proposal which expressed the ideals of the major Anti-Enlightenment ideological movement: ‘a synthesis of the communities of the Arian

race’ in that ‘diamond of the Earth’ (Greece) based ‘around the metropolis ofDelphi’. [74] It was a full-scale attack on the French revolutionary tradition, on

liberalism, on individualism and on parliamentary democracy. In spite of the bestattempts of many researchers to disassociate Angelos Sikelianos from his relationship

with the above reactionary political tradition (as the latter was a primary theoreticalprerequisite for Fascism), a more level-headed historian can easily perceive theassociations. [75]

6.

The employment of Byzantine music in the Mistriotis and Duncan performances at

the beginning of the twentieth century had been treated by a large section of themodern Greek intelligentsia with irony or awkward smiles. But the use of the same

music in the tragic performances of the Delphic festivals in 1927 and 1930 won wideapproval. [76] The Delphic Festivals’ influence was critical: they helped crystallize a

redefinition of modern Greek nationalism, a redefinition desperately needed after themilitary defeat in Asia Minor and other events in 1922 which essentially signalled theend of most irredentist claims. In the case of the Delphic festivals, the new Greek

nationalism materialized with the help of a certain perception of the Neo-Romantic

2102 A. Glytzouris


and Anti-Enlightenment European tradition. By enriching in this way the nationalIdea, Greek reality would come to be viewed all the more intensely via the ideological

filter of ‘Greekness’: ‘Greek’ nature, ‘Greek’ light, ‘Greek’ style, ‘Greek’ speech. [77]One should also not forget that Palmer-Sikelianos did not base her work on any

foreign director. Actually, no ‘Greek’ revival of ancient drama had taken place upuntil then using costumes woven on the loom, Byzantine music and the syrtos and

balos dances. In reality, of course, her choices were not ‘Greek’ at all but that issomething we know today with the benefit of hindsight. For Palmer-Sikelianos, who

treated the Western bourgeois tradition with disdain, something in the culturalfoundations of the country was being transcended by reading the domestic reality ofGreece via a dynamic entity, ‘Greekness’, which could be utilized and capitalized

upon internationally. In this way, the Modern Greek suggestion of how to reviveancient Greek theatre entered the international cultural environment, something

which had not been feasible up until then. [78]Undoubtedly, the turning point was the use of domestic, folk tradition. When

researchers read the pages of Duncan’s autobiography which recount the discovery ofancient civilization in the faces of the Greek villagers of the time, they are left with no

doubt that the Duncans certainly believed they had found the exotic natives of aprimitive tribe, who were the untouched descendants of the ancient Greeks. [79]

Palmer-Sikelianos had a similar feeling when she first heard a Greek folk song sung byAngelos Sikelianos’ sister, and Raymond’s wife, Penelope. The first Greek-Americanwedding opened the horizons for reviving ancient tragedy based on Greece’s folk

tradition. The second marriage between Eva Palmer and Angelos Sikelianos completedit. Of course, neither Duncan nor Palmer was the only Americans to ‘discover’ ancient

Greek remnants in the culture of the Balkan natives which they could ‘resurrect’. This isindeed an area which is related to a new type of American philhellenism, a worship of

both ancient and modern Greece, the latter being the heir of the former. In addition toIsadora and Raymond Duncan, the inscrutable figures of Prof. Von Oftendhal (or

Oftenthal) and John Alden were integral in the burgeoning classical education offeredby American universities. [80] A quick overview of the important activities of theAmerican theatre manager George Cram Cook (‘Jig’) and his wife and dramatist, Susan

Glaspell, in Greece show that the worship of ancient, un-urbanized and un-industrialized Greece was a result of a radical doubt of their Western, modern

identity. [81] Moreover, when they all arrived in Greece they cast off their Westernclothing and put on the chlamys or a fustanella and then tried to adopt a ‘Greek’ code

of conduct, whether ancient or traditional. [82] From a similar perspective, the Greeklanguage was treated by Palmer-Sikelianos as music in the sense intended by

Schopenhauer. [83] Moreover, when Eva was watching traditional weavingtechniques in the villages she noticed that spinning with the distaff was a social

activity, a pleasant means of social interaction, which was much more pleasing thatWestern ‘tea-parties’. [84]

The treatment of the body clearly had a specific socio-political dimension, that of

‘aestheticizing’ it. That dimension can also be detected in Greek ideological currents



of the Inter-war years. In his attempt to create an ideal form of gymnastics as thebasis for modern dance which was based on ancient dance and which sought to

purify the body, Raymond Duncan at first copied, as we noted above, the posesshown on ancient pottery. However, when he abandoned his study of pottery for a

while and travelled to Epirus, he saw that the bodies of the shepherds stood out ‘fortheir amazing movement’, not when they danced but when they were simply

climbing the mountains. When he then went on to deal with Greek labourers andfarmers he realized that their movements when they worked ‘utterly resembled those

which are depicted on the pottery’. [85] Similarly, Palmer-Sikelianos started early onto categorically reject the off-the-peg clothing industry. [86] When she first came toGreece, she settled with the vegetarian Duncans in the sui generis American

‘commune’ in Kopanas, near Athens, living there in ‘ancient Greek style’; [87] andsome time thereafter the body of a Greek fisherman who used harpoons to fish in the

islet of St Nicolas, Lefkada, reminded her of Poseidon since he portrayed a‘movement older than Greek art’. [88] Precisely this experiment, to ‘resurrect’ the

ancient Greek bodies, later materialized into the bodies of the tragic chorus membersof the Delphic performances dressed in loom-woven clothes. It is illustrative that at

first Palmer-Sikelianos had thought of selecting ‘either middle class girls or villagegirls’ for the chorus of Oceanides. However, the latter, despite being ‘beautiful in

their simplicity’, were finally rejected since were not evenly tanned to be able to wearthe ancient costumes; and ‘the result would not have been pretty – because the facewould have been a different colour from the arms, and the neck another colour’. In

the end she chose girls from the Lyceum of Greek Women who came from families ofthe Athenian elite although she was still hesitant about this. She was afraid that the

‘girls from the wealthy class’ were unsuitable because they had adopted Westernmores and customs, and did not represent ‘truly the elements which had been

preserved from ancient Greece’. [89] Similarly, Aestheticism compromised with thetaste and strict conservative morals of society amateur actresses affected the design of

the costumes used to dress the Danaids in the chorus of the Suppliant Women.Relying on Egyptian monuments, Palmer-Sikelianos claimed that the Egyptian-styledresses of the chorus ought to be transparent. However, she back down when faced

with the reactions of the mothers of the girls participating in the chorus. [90]About the same time the ideology of ‘Ellinikotita’ (‘Greekness’) was closely

associated with that of ‘Laikotita’ (‘Folkness’) of Photis Kontoglou, YannisTsarouchis and Karolos Koun (who dared to choose the actors for the Folk Stage

in 1933 from the working class). [91] However, as Palmer-Sikelianos said, ‘theintelligentsia abroad admires and pays attention to Greece not because it resembles

abroad but precisely because of the difference that exists with Europe and thesimilarity that exists with ancient Greece’. [92] This argument once again brought to

the fore the old interface, which existed since the nineteenth century, between Greek‘folklore studies’ (Laographia) and antiquarian studies and the love of antiquity.According to Greek ‘folklorists’, Greek folk culture existed as a cultural entity only in

its capacity as the bearer of and continuation of ancient Greek culture. Although the

2104 A. Glytzouris


perception of ‘people’ within the Greek folklorist movement remained ratherunchanged along the lines expressed by nineteenth-century scholarship, at the same

time it was also clear that the Greek folk culture (and ‘Greekness’ as well) attractednow the interest of a foreign, international audience. The traditional folk arts,

Byzantine music and village dances had been included in the directorial approach tothe tragic chorus not because Palmer-Sikelianos treated them as artistic equivalents to

the ancient texts but because she considered them to be part of the heritage of ancientGreek culture. For that reason the artistic basis of the chorus was fixated on archaic

pottery, the Greek folk dance conventions were confined to just six verses, and the‘Lenten’ music of Psachos instead of traditional music was used. Folk culture was nottreated as a functional and artistically self-sufficient system of values but only with

the awe and respect of an ark which had preserved the ancient Greek culture; and ofcourse as a means of internationally promoting Greece. In that sense, one can detect

in these developments the origins of the post-war exploitation of ancient Greektheatre in connection with the growth of mass tourism (which was encouraged as a

substitute of ‘industry’ in this un-industrialized South-European country).The neo-Romantic roots of Palmer-Sikelianos’ exploration of how to harmo-

niously blend poetry, dance and music into a single piece of art were in large part dueto the important shift in ideology about the continuity of Hellenism on stage from

the words of the text to the ‘poetry’ of the living body. This new correlation betweenelements drawn from both the ancient Greek art and contemporary folk art,articulated in the inclusion of the art of dance and the dancer’s body in modern

Greek ideological and artistic tradition, opened up new paths towards staging ancientdrama in the inter-war years and the decades thereafter. No matter how much the

directorial approach was a rearguard of the European Neo-Romanticism of the startof the century, by Greek standards it had managed to change the landscape when it

came to the issue of revival. Perhaps Palmer-Sikelianos’ greatest contribution to therevival of ancient theatre in Greece was related to this difficult area of the

presentation of the tragic chorus on stage.On the other hand, it was unavoidable that the same developments in Greece took

into account Western developments in the field of dance; an art form which had

entered the modern age in Europe and the United States via its exposure to theSymbolist environment. Besides Duncan’s achievements, it is perhaps sufficient to

mention the theoretical views of Stephane Mallarme on dance or Edward GordonCraig’s famous words: ‘the father of the dramatist was the dancer’. [93] To be sure,

the possible influences of Indian dance, from the Indian dancer and friend of thecouple, Kourshed Naoroji, must also be mentioned. They spent the summer of 1924

together and she danced and sang at their home in Sykia. [94] However, it is a factthat there was really no intention to experiment with a modern directorial

interpretation based on the analogies between the traditional and anti-realistictheatrical conventions of the ancient Greek tragic chorus and the equally non-realisticartistic conventions of the Greek folk music/dance tradition. Viewed from this

perspective, the endeavour simply sought to cultivate an extreme Aestheticism which



was responsible for some very serious contradictions. It is only from this standpointthat we can interpret the fact that the tragic chorus of the Delphic performances

disdained the ancient text; that it was based on an arbitrary transformation of archaicartistic conventions into choric conventions, as well as a transformation of traditional

folk-dance conventions into artistic conventions; or even that the director rejectedthe village girls because of their suntan, and used silk to weave the costumes on a

loom. Moreover, Palmer-Sikelianos’ main purpose was not even dance or theatre-related. She noted flatly in 1925: ‘I repeat that my objective is not primarily to play

Aeschylus’ Prometheus but to take an unwavering decision to show that the centuriesold elements of Greek culture are still alive’. [95] The much-vaunted revival of thetragic chorus was attempted by amateurs, led by an enthusiastic ‘noble ideologue’;

[96] by people who had not developed serious relations with either the theatre or theart of dance. That is all the more true for Angelos Sikelianos, the person who inspired

the Delphic Idea and stressed its non-theatrical character. Even the choice ofPrometheus Bound was made because of the play’s relationship with the myth of

Iapetus; in other words it served the ideal of an ecumenical renaissance. In reality, itrelated to a new, more spiritual resurrection of the Modern Greek nationalism of the

nineteenth century in the Inter-war years, a re-definition of the Hellenic-Christianideal and its re-affirmation as a key component of Greek ideology. [97] Behind that

amateurism was a well-hidden fear of the threat of ‘decadent’ modernism; that is, thefear that the entire issue would end up as a theatrical and dance event, ‘the risk ofmaking the Drama a simple theatrical performance’; or as Eva put it in 1930 after the

Delphic Festival to the then Minister of Culture ‘I am not a ballet-master’. [98]Apparently, this was another attempt of ideological formulation of Greek elite. The

criticism in the professional modern Greek theatre of the era, as well as the Greekupper-class reaction to mass sport, constitute clearly a continuity with the ideals of a

native amateurism as a vehicle for the social distinction of elite from the middleclasses. [99]

The fact that the Delphic performances were a major society happening is oneaspect which has been overlooked. Researchers are often in the awkward position ofcollecting information about the chorus and preparations for it from the society

columns of the daily press. Readers of this paper need to take into account that all thecream of Athenian society had been involved into these events and that, under

normal circumstances, the spectators in the audience (when not foreigners, scholarsand journalists) were members of the capital’s ‘high’ society. [100] The handling of

the ancient chorus in the difficult to comprehend theoretical texts of the artisticSikelianos couple and in the orchestra of the ancient theatre undoubtedly entailed a

dialogue between Neo-Romanticism, the requirements of ‘Greekness’ and authenticfolk art. However, in the final analysis that was something completely compatible

with the fact that in the mind of Athens ‘society’ and the readers of newspapers of thetime, the artistic and ideological factors at play also included the talents of the thenfamous Greek beauty queen and Miss Europe, Aliki Diplarakou. Her presence at

Delphi, as was expected, drew much attention. If one is to believe the artistic gossip of

2106 A. Glytzouris


the time, before leaving for the European competition Diplarakou had promised totake part in the chorus and had learned the requisite 500 movements, but winning the

prize meant she had to cancel her participation in the performance. However, it did notprevent her from turning up one day in traditional Macedonian costume and the next

day in an Oceanides costume. In this way, she managed to give to several people theimpression that she had been ‘broken off from some masterly ancient relief’. Her

obligations towards the Miss Europe contest did not stop her either from dancing ‘firstthe Greek dance with the fustanella-wearing villagers at Psila Alonia’. [101] It was also

an opportunity for certain theories to be formulated about the relationship between theGreek pedigree and the female body in conjunction with US off-the-peg fashion of theday. The title of a relevant newspaper article speaks volumes: ‘Eternal Greek beauty.

Delphi, Miss Greece 1930 and the Revival of Antiquity’. [102]

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on my two previous works published in Greek (Glytzouris 1998and 2002), although these are strongly revised and augmented here and, at the same

time, a more composite approach to the question is attempted. I would also like tothank Eleni Fournaraki and Zinon Papakonstantinou for their useful comments.

Notes

[1] Sikelianos, Pezos Logos, vol. II, passim.[2] Sideris, To arhaio theatro, 320–62.[3] Ibid., 405–26.[4] Leontis, ‘Mediterranean Theoria’, 103.[5] ‘Palmer-Sikelianos, Eva. ‘I Ellas odigitis tis Anthropotitos’.[6] Excerpts from Palmer-Sikelianos’ application are cited by Papadaki, To ephiviko protypo,

112–3.[7] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 110.[8] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 149. For the vision of the ancient athlete in terms of the

relationship between the concept of ‘health’ and the European fin-de-siecle Decadence, seeGlytzouris, ‘Parakmi, mystikismos kai oi nekrofaneies tis ellinikis ratsas. O Asklepios toyAngelou Sikelianou’. See also Papadaki, To ephiviko protypo kai I delphiki prospatheia touAngeloy Sikelianou, 51, 78–79, 113. For Chrysafis’ views see also Koulouri’s contribution inthis volume.

[9] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 111, 183.[10] Eva Sikelianos, ‘Eisigisis eis ton Promithea’ [Introduction to Prometheus], Vradyni, 12 Jan.

1925.[11] Up until 1902 when she came to Europe, she took part in few student performances and

recitations at US colleges. Between 1902 and 1906 she had two unsuccessful attempts attaking to the stage professionally in London and Paris. During the same period, sheassociated with Neo-romantic artists in Paris and appeared in a few amateur performanceswhich were dominated by an extreme Aestheticism. See Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic,35–43, 105–6; Papadaki, Grammata tis Evas Palmer-Sikelianou sti Natalie Clifford Barney,15–19; Papadaki, L’Interpretation de l’antiquite en Grece moderne, 50–54. From 1907 to 1927,



when she lived primarily in Greece, she appeared only once more on stage, which was inParis in 1911, where she played the role of Hrysothemis in Sophocles’ Electra in aperformance organized by Raymond Duncan and Penelope Sikelianos-Duncan (see note 55below).

[12] Palmer-Sikelianos’ knowledge of traditional Greek music and the loom began in around1904 in Paris, and was probably introduced to her by the Duncan couple. Her knowledge waslater enriched and systematized in Greece. She attended music lessons with Psachos on anamateur basis from 1908 and more systematically after 1915. See Palmer-Sikelianos, UpwardPanic, 93–94; Dragoumis, ‘Konstantinos A. Psachos’, 311–12. Finally, Sikelianos, Epistoles tisEvas Palmer-Sikelianou gia to arhaio drama is exceptionally useful for her views on the revivalof ancient tragedy after 1933.

[13] Eva Sikelianos, ‘I mousiki eis to arhaion drama’ [Music in the Ancient Drama], EleftheronVima, 5 Oct. 1931, Palmer-Sikelianos, Treis Dialexeis, 55, 58–59, ‘Prokirixi mousikoudiagonismou gia tin melopoiesi ton horikon tis tragodias Iketides toy Aeschylou’ [Notice of amusical contest to set to music the chorus for the tragedy Suppliant Women by Aeschylus],Proıa, 18 Jan. 1928, Sikelianos, ‘Ti einai megalo theatro?’, 39, Palmer-Sikelianos, UpwardPanic, 105–6, 188–90.

[14] She was thrilled when Suppliant Women was chosen for the second festival, not only becausedance had a leading role, but because it was considered to be the oldest remaining tragedy.She noted that she would have been even happier if academics uncovered a work byFerekydes, Pratinas or Thespis (Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 129–30). Tsarouchis laterrecalled that ‘she did not love Euripides, except for the Bacchae, which she considered anAeschylean work. Finally, she considered Sophocles work to be merely good theatre, alwaysbelow Aeschylus’ (‘Tha borousa na grapso selides ateleiotes gia tin Eva Sikelianou’, 234).

[15] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 106–7, 113–4. For an example of academic approach tothe staged revival of the ancient chorus in Suppliant Women and Prometheus Bound, seeWebster, The Greek Chorus, 122–5, 130.

[16] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 186–7. For the German expressionist dance and itstranscription in Greece as an ‘authentic’ model of the reborn ‘Greek’ dance, see Hasioti,‘Politiki kai koinoniki diastasi tis shesis horou kai theatrou apo ton Mesopolemo mehri taprota Metemfyliaka hronia’, 509–20.

[17] Palmer-Sikelianos, Treis Dialexeis, 7.[18] See, for example, Daly, ‘Isadora Duncan’s Dance Theory’, 24–31 and Daly, Done into Dance,

23–87. Her views had been translated with great speed into Greek. For example, lengthyexcerpts from her ‘manifesto’, The Dance of the Future (1903), were translated by G.Varounis and published in Panathinaia (D0, 15 Oct. 1903, 6–7).

[19] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 196.[20] ‘We wanted to show’, wrote Eva probably at 1928/9, ‘that the chorus was not only the centre

of the ancient drama and a reason for its existence, but also that the trend in modern artgropes along to rediscover the perfect form in the art, which the Greek race – or at least apart of this – had preserved the elements of’ ([Palmer-] Sikelianos, ‘I tragodia kataSikelianon’, 67–68).

[21] See, for example, Kyriakidou-Nestoros, I theoria tis ellinikis laografias, 89–97, 148–85.[22] Palmer-Sikelianos, Treis Dialexeis, 57–60.[23] As well as weaving with a loom, Sikelianos had also learned the method of copying from

ancient pottery and sculptures from Raymond Duncan, who used them for his sister’s dances(Duncan, My Life, 54, 65–66, Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 49–56).

[24] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 182.[25] In addition, music was the only substantial resource available to Palmer-Sikelianos for the

revival of dance. Her husband’s proposal that she take over the choreography for Prometheus

2108 A. Glytzouris


Bound in 1924 certainly surprised her, and initially she responded as if it were ‘an applicationof Greek music to drama’. For her views, see her article ‘I elliniki mousiki’ [Greek Music],Philotechnos (Volou), I’, May 1927, 277–8.

[26] Palmer-Sikelianos, Treis Dialexeis, 69–71).[27] Eva Sikelianos, ‘I idrysis sholis ellinikis mousikis’ [The Establishment of the School of Greek

Music], Vradyni, 3 July 1930.[28] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 107.[29] Ibid., 107–8.[30] See interviews with the composer in the newspaper Vradyni, 5 May 1927 and 19 May 1930.[31] The Broader collaboration between Palmer-Sikelianos and the Lyceum, merits special

research. See also Fournaraki, present volume, note 88. Initially, there was an idea of teachingthe girls in the chorus the Byzantine musical notation so that they could learn to read themusic of Psachos. At the same time, visits would begin to the National ArchaeologicalMuseum so they could develop a new type of gymnastics through studying the pottery.However, the girls seem to be bored and so, after only a few meetings, Palmer-Sikelianosabandoned the attempts (Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 109; Pratsika, ‘Anamniseis apotis protes Delphices Yortes toy 1972’, 127–9).

[32] Pratsika, ‘Anamniseis apo tis protes Delphices Yortes toy 1927’, 126–7, Mavrommatis, BellaRaftopoulou, passim. A few unsigned sketches from pottery have also been preserved in theHistoric Archive of the Benaki Museum (Athens). Raftopoulou was present at the DelphicFestivals (Mavrommatis, Bella Raftopoulou, 40 and Bouketo, 29 May 1930, 531), whilst hersisters were part of the chorus of the Oceanides.

[33] A number of sketches by Raftopoulou for Prometheus Bound were found in the Melpo andOctave Merlier Archive at the Centre for Asia Minor Studies (Athens). Above each figure wasthe word or phrase from the verse which it represented. The correlation of course took placewith a reasonable amount of arbitrariness. For example, a sketch which presents two figureswith the explanatory note ‘lamentation’ which was used for ‘I lament’ of line 397 ofPrometheus could also have been used in any other passage of tragedy where the same wordor a derivative of this comes up. There is, for example, a copy from a vessel in the BenakiMuseum which depicts Hercules bent over to lift up the Earth, from the mythological eventwith Atlas. Two variants of the same sketch were used to illustrate two different phrases inthe verses of different tragedies. The first, in the Centre for Asia Minor Studies, was to renderline 429 of Prometheus (‘which always the weight of the Earth’ in I. Gryparis’ translation).The second, in the Mavrommati edition (142), accompanies line 475 of Antigone.

[34] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 109, Margariti ‘Delphikes Yortes’, Pratsika, ‘Anamniseisapo tis protes Delphices Yortes toy 1927’, 126. The general auditions and the final selectionof the 14 girls for the chorus took place on 29 March 1927 at the large society meeting placeof the time, ‘Delices’ (see letter from the management of the ‘Delices’ to Palmer-Sikelianosdated 23 March 1927 at the Historic Archive of the Benaki Museum and ‘The Society Card’,Vradyni, 30 March 1927). For Suppliant Women, chorus rehearsals began at the end of 1929at the Archaeological Society and at Atelier, see Eleftheron Vima, 7 May 1930.

[35] The manuscript was probably compiled by Raftopoulou as a kind of memo, or as a guide tothe positions and movements of the chorus in the orchestra, and is probably the firstchoreography notebook for a tragedy performance in the history of Modern Greek theatre. Ithas 27 pages and is available in photographic format at the Merlier Archive. It was locatedand published for the first time by Mavrommatis (Bella Raftopoulou, 42–59). The notebookcovers the parodos (apart from verses 128–35, 182) and the stasima, and has been preservedalmost complete. The choreography for verses 184–5 of the parodos, 559–60 of the secondAct and 900–6 of the third Act has been lost (or has not been photographed). For theremaining parts, the choreography guide is accompanied by another single-page manuscript



by Raftopoulou, which gives very general indications as to approximately how the chorusshould react to the episodes. Concerning the choreography notebook, Raftopoulou initiallywrote out the verses of the Chorus clearly, using the Gryparis’ translation, leaving the lower partof the page blank to sketch small figures which indicated the postures of the chorus. Below thefigures she noted the steps each dancer must perform and, next to these, explanations andclarifications of the posture they must make with their bodies. In addition, there are notes andsketches in the border, relating to the groupings and arrangement of the chorus in the orchestra,although there is no mention anywhere of the relationship between the dance and the music.

[36] Pantomimic expression is a demonstrative approach where the word is a person (towards therock in Prometheus, towards the place from which the actress playing Io left, towards the skiesof the ‘gods’) or part of the body (the chorus shows the heart, eyes, mind, etc. thecorresponding parts of its body). In other cases some characteristic movement is adopted, forinstance, when the word relates to an object (‘sharpened sword’, ‘knife’), or if it refers to anabstract concept (with the hands tied behind and ‘sitting on the pelvis’ or ‘bound by chains’,mimicking someone who lifts a weight for ‘labourer’, or lying down for the ‘bridal bed’, etc.).

[37] The journalist Sotos Petras calculated the movements of the chorus in Suppliant Women at500 (Vradyni, 2 May 1930).

[38] For example, three continuous steps were used to render ‘footsteps’, or six continuous steps,with hands in an offering position, was noted to render the meaning of a sacrificial offering.

[39] For this subject, see Lambrinos, ‘I kinimatographisi ton Delfikon Yorton’, 135–44 andGlytzouris ‘I kinimatografiki eikona os pigi tis istorias toy neoellinikoy theatroy’, passim.From the first shot, when the chorus is shown moving slowly and rhythmically in theorchestra, one can determine the flawless coordination of movements and the stylizationwhich had so impressed critics at the time. Furthermore, even when the shots show thechorus divided into four groups, it moves in serpentine shapes. The young ladies of thechorus, in their attempt to bring alive the images from ancient pottery with the head ‘deprofile’ and the body ‘en face’, created an enormous range of shapes which unfolded, inmeandering fashion, one after another. This ‘Art Nouveau’ arrangement of the choruscertainly continued even after the departure of Hermes, when a human ‘ribbon’ was createdon the pathway on the rock. The ‘ribbon’ started at the crucified Prometheus at the top, and‘winds’ down the mountain to reach its base. The chorus, always with the body ‘en face’ andthe head ‘de profile’, walks with difficultly along the pathway of the artificial ‘mountain’and then they quickly depart before the spectacular finale.

[40] Eleftheron Vima, 23 May 1927.[41] Y. Miliades, Simera, 7, July 1933, 217, Vradyni, 6 May 1930, Ach. Mamakis, Ethnos, 2 May

1930, K. Ouranis, Eleftheron Vima, 3 May 1930, and others.[42] ‘Focused on the verse and the movement, the song, the stance, rolling and unrolling like living

scrolls of papyrus. The same Egyptian sculptures from tombs or obelisks, coming together andseparating, they make rivers or tall palms with their hands blowing in the wind like branches’(Eleftheron Vima, 26 April 1930). ‘But even if they wanted it to be so schematized on purpose,the chorus was so stylized’, complained Sophia Mavroeidi, ‘let us at least react more to themeaning of the whole attitude of the work and less to each phrase [. . .]. It ended up as a jokeand not at all interesting. So you followed the parodos – and many went – and later you lost allinterest. You know that the mountain will be depicted by a high curve, the sea by a wave of thehands, birds by a flapping, the path of a river with a touch below the feet and the famousAphrodite with a touch of the ear and reflection’ (Elliniki Epitheorisis, 271, June 1930, 102).

[43] The ‘resurrection’ of the Delphic landscape could ‘magically’ influence the revival of ancientdrama but, in the end, it probably impeded the artistic experiment. In any case, it is a veryimportant part of the Delphic performances that must, however, form the subject of anotherpaper.

2110 A. Glytzouris


[44] ‘The chorus took back the place which, in all likelihood, had before: the first’, Alkis Thrilostold Nea Estia on 1 June 1927 (Thrylos, To neoelliniko theatro, 47). ‘For the first time wewitnessed a performance of an ancient tragedy in the fullness of its elements, the speech, themusic and the dance. It was truly something novel’ (Y. Miliades, Simera, 7, July 1933, 185).‘It made us wonder how we could for so many generations have endured [ancient] theatrewithout the chorus which, singing and dancing and acting as an intermediary between thecharacters in the drama and us spectators’, remarked F. Dragoumis (Peitharhia, 31, 18 May1930, 25). While Keramopoulos admitted: ‘I am not ashamed to say that at Delphi Iunderstood well why the ancient Greeks classified dance among the fine arts’ (EleftheronVima, 23 May 1927).

[45] Glytzouris, I skinothetiki tehni stin Ellada, 253–61.[46] Ibid., 493–94.[47] ‘I would have liked to try it’, proposed Keramopoulos despite all this, ‘at least in part, with

more intense songs of the dancers, so that the feeling of the spectators would not have beenfocused only on the music and formation of the dances, but also on the meaning of thepoet’s best verses. It seems to me that for the spectators, those who did not know Prometheusfrom their studies, or did not know the Greek language, the poet is discerned less than themusic, while both must be honoured equally’ (Eleftheron Vima, 23 May 1927). Thrylos, onthe other hand, also remarked that the chorus ‘did not express the words’, which ‘did notsound like words, but just like sounds’. Nevertheless, he considered that, in this way, thechorus expressed the ‘mood’ and the ‘musical atmosphere’ and thus ‘Prometheus was rebornas a musical drama’ (Thrylos, To neoelliniko theatro, 46–47).

[48] Vasilis Rotas, for example, reported that the chorus ‘entering, danced a clear syrtos’ and thentook stylized poses – supporting, certainly, the fact that the chorus should be arranged by aprofessional choreographer ‘to a motif from modern Greek dances (syrtos, tsamikos,pentozalis, trata, etc.), which were also danced with the head and legs ‘‘de profile’’ and thechest ‘‘en face’’’ (Ellinika Grammata, 127–34). Tsarouchis was recalling that Palmer-Sikelianos copied positions from pottery and ‘combined them together either with simplefootwork, or with the rhythm of the balos or of the syrtos’ (‘Tha borousa na grapso selidesateleiotes gia tin Eva Sikelianou’, 233). Kakouri, who played Io, reported that ‘in the folk-dance song, Eva and some of her specialized associates requested support for the rendition ofthe dances in the Aeschylean tragedy’ (‘Oi Delfikes Yortes’, 869).

[49] Veloudios,‘Epitideigmi Pyrrihiou eis 9/8’, 125.[50] Tsarouchis, ‘Tha borousa na grapso selides ateleiotes gia tin Eva Sikelianou’, 234. Yagkaki

interpreted the solos of verses 143–51 and 277–83 (Eleftheron Vima, 23 May 1927) andappeared a few weeks later as Azucena in Trovatore (Vradyni, 26 April 1927, 4 June 1927).The truth is that Palmer-Sikelianos did not want an orchestra but a chorus acting of its ownvolition, the leader of which would play the flute. Later she considered it a personal errorthat she had deferred to Psachos, who had written music for an orchestra. Therefore, for theperformance of Suppliant Women, she took the initiative to get rid of half of the instrumentsthe composition required, and to place a small orchestra of two harps and a few windinstruments in the recess of the theatre, in front of the first of the spectators’ seats. (See ‘Imousiki eis to arhaion drama’ [Music in the Ancient Drama] and ‘Arhaio drama kaimousiki’ [Ancient Drama and Music], Eleftheron Vima, 5 and 24 Oct. 1931; and Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 115–6.

[51] Pratsika, ‘Anamniseis apo tis protes Delphices Yortes toy 1927’, 126.[52] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 47.[53] Sidonie Gabrielle Colette remembered Palmer playing Pierre Louys’ Dialogue au soleil

couchant with her at the start of the century, wearing ‘a Greek chiton of blue-green, while Ithought myself a perfect Daphne thanks to a crepe de Chine the colour of the ground’. In



June 1906, Eva played the part of Timas alongside Penelope Sikelianos-Duncan playingSappho in Natalie Clifford Barney’s two-act work Equivoque (Papadaki, Grammata tis EvasPalmer-Sikelianou sti Natalie Clifford Barney, 13–22 and Palmer-Sikelianos Upward Panic,43).

[54] Ibid., 108–9.[55] Hand-woven fabric had already been used in 1911 in performances of Electra in the original

which was organized by Raymond Duncan (see note 3 above). In the above performancesappeared actors of the former ‘Nea Skini’ [New Stage] (1901–06) which had been foundedand directed by Konstantinos Christomanos, a major exponent of Aestheticism in modernGreek theatre (Angelos Sikelianos had also appeared as actor in this troupe in 1901). Otheractors involved with this troupe were Eleni Pasagianni and Dionysios Devaris (later thecofounder, together with Karolos Koun and Yannis Tsarouchis, of the ‘Laiki Skini’ [FolkStage]). See Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 55, and the memoirs of Raymond Duncan inthe periodical Kainouria Epohi, Summer 1957, 19.

[56] Kakouri, ‘Oi Delfikes Yortes’, 870.[57] See also the laudatory critique ‘Costume in Revivals of Greek Drama’, Bulletin of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, XXXI, 6 June 1936, New York, 134–5. Two years later, Palmer-Sikelianos gave a lecture at the Museum of Costume Art in New York on the subject of‘Ancient Greek Costume. Draping and Fabric’ (see Papadaki, Grammata tis Evas Palmer-Sikelianou sti Natalie Clifford Barney, 340).

[58] ‘I Ka Sikelianou omilei dia tin ellinikin moda. H epivoli tou ellinikou rythmou’ [Mrs SikelianosSpeaks about Greek Fashion. The Imposition of the Greek Style] and ‘I Ka Sikelianou synehizeitas skepseis tis dia tin ellinikin viotehnian’ [Mrs Sikelianos Continues her Thoughts on GreekIndustry], Vradyni, 25 and 26 June 1930. See also her earlier discourse ‘I moda stin Ellada’[Fashion in Greece] in Sikelianos Treis dialexeis, as well as Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic:47–48, 75–80, 85–86, 141–42. It is worth noting the ideological coherence between Palmer-Sikelianos’ views and the views of Callirhoe Parren, President of the Lyceum of Greek Women,which since its foundation in 1911 had made the preservation and promotion of Greekwomen’s folk art one of its major objectives. Since 1921 the Lyceum of Greek Womenorganised women’s art and craft exhibitions; see the information and documents published inEleni Bobou-Protopapa, To Lykeion ton Ellinidon, 1911–91, passim and especially C. Parren’sspeech (128–31) at the inauguration of the first Lyceum exhibition of this kind in 1921. EvaPalmer-Sikelianos, a member of the Lyceum at that time, participated with her work in the1921 exhibition and was especially praised by Parren.

[59] Sideris, To arhaio elliniko theatro sti nea elliniki skini, 139, 164. V. Vekiarellis, an ardentsupporter of the Delphic idea, urged the Sikelianos couple to use Sakellarides ‘for hisextremely Greek music’ at the next Festival (Elefteros Typos, 22 May 1927).

[60] The first appearance was at the Municipal Theatre in Athens on 28 November 1903, and wasfollowed by two performances at the Royal Theatre on 11 and 15 December 1903. The eventtook place at a time when the Duncan family had come, via Karvasara, on a ‘pilgrimage’ toGreece, ‘our Mecca, which, for us, meant the splendor of perception’. The whole issue wasconnected to Duncan’s short-lived experiments towards the historical continuity of ancientmusic via the Byzantine tradition, a direction for which her brother and her sister-in-law,Penelope Sikelianos, must have been responsible (Duncan, My Life, 120). The chorus fromSuppliant Women (part of a wider programme) displeased the Athenians of the time, eventhose who were enthusiastic about the American dancer (Kimon Michailides, Panathinaia,D’, 15 Dec. 1903, 150–2, Tim. Stathopoulos, Akropolis, 17 Dec. 1903, Estia, 12 Dec. 1903,Ang. Evangelides, Embros, 12 Dec. 1903, Duncan, My Life, 118–9, 121–2, Leontis,‘Mediterranean Theoria: A View from Delphi’, 107–9 and Puchner, ‘I Isadora Duncan kaio ellinikos horos’, 87–92).

2112 A. Glytzouris


[61] Duncan, My Life, 122. For her trip to Greece, with excellent illustrations, see Duncan, et al.,Life Into Art, 50–59.

[62] Duncan, My Life, 117–28 and Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 186. Here the subject iscertainly discussed superficially. Duncan’s visits to Greece in 1903 (when, amongst otherthings, she took part in support of Mistriotis’ students in the violent events of theOresteiaka) as well as in 1912, 1915 and 1919 (when she founded a school of Ancient Dancewith the support of the Venizelos government) are highly significant for the subjects we areexamining and require specialized study.

[63] His troupe gave many performances of ancient tragedies in the United States and in Europe,which were accompanied by folk songs sung by Penelope Duncan. At performances ofElectra and Alcestis, for instance, which were performed ‘in Ancient Greek’ in America,Penelope sang at the end of the performances ‘Greek songs of the mountain’ and chanted‘pieces of ecclesiastical music’ (Panathinaia, 28 Feb. 1903, 303).

[64] The couple came to Greece in 1927, at the invitation of Palmer-Sikelianos, to take part in theDelphic Festival, and danced Apollo’s dance with the Python. See Sideris, To arhaio ellinikotheatro sti nea elliniki skini, 281, 286, 289, 290, 292, 293, 298, 312, 361 and Kanellos, I arhaiaelliniki orhesis kai I Isadora Dougkan, passim.

[65] There is a wealth of information which is exceptionally interesting, but piecemeal, and only asystematic study of the Press at the time can provide results. The dancer Artemisia Kolonaappeared in Arniotes theatre in 1906. (Hadzipantazis, I athinaiki epitheorisi, 49). ‘Nausica’danced ancient Greek dances in the revue Scating Ring (1909) by Timos Moraitinis (Sideris,To arhaio elliniko theatro sti nea elliniki skini, 236, Hadzipantazis, Ibid., 49). TerpsichoreThespis, of Hungarian descent, also studied the ‘representations on reliefs and pottery’ forher dance compositions in around 1910 (Sideris, Ibid., 244). The Misses Victoros appearedsuccessfully at the Municipal Theatre of Athens in 1912 (Sideris, Ibid., 252). From 1926onwards, the relevant records become more frequent (Sideris, Ibid., 313, 317–8, 321, 388,426).

[66] Fuller did not fail to express her admiration for Greek folk dances (Sideris, ‘Kosmikierasitehnia kai theatro’, 37–38).

[67] For this matter see also Glytzouris, ‘I kinimatografiki eikona os pigi tis istorias toyneoellinikou theatrou’, 139–56. The criticism of the period constrained the ideologicalbeginnings of the Delphic Endeavour to activities such as those of the Lyceum of GreekWomen, which was founded in the second decade of the century: ‘It must be recognised thatthe Lyceum of Greek Women has opened the way for the revitalization of national holidays,which bridges the higher, wondrous past of the race with the later and contemporarydevelopments in Greek culture’ (Eleftheros Typos, 14 May 1927). Some certainly reached thepoint of seeing the celebrations at the Lyceum in 1927, ‘as a continuation of andaccompaniment to the Delphic Festival’ (Vradyni, 12 May 1927). In any case, let it be notedthat the first ‘performance’ (actually a parade) of the Oceanides contributed to the Lyceum’sparade in the Panathenaic Stadium in 1926. See the letter on this matter from Sikelianos toRaftopoulou dated 30 May 1926 (Merlier Archive, Centre for Asia Minor Studies) and thearticle by Photos Politis in the newspaper Politeia, 21 June 1926 republished by Politis,Epilogi kritikon arthron, 210–11. The festivals of the Lyceum were indeed designed ascomplementary to the Delphic ones. This is corroborated by the Lyceum public notice andpress reports as well as by documents from the archives of the Greek Olympic Committeethat granted to the Lyceum the right to use the Stadium on 15 May 1926 (I owe thisinformation to Eleni Fournaraki); see Fournaraki, ‘Apo ti gymnastiki sto horo’ and hercontribution to the present volume.

[68] Angelos Sikelianos, ‘To Delphiko Panepistimio. Proshedio’ [1929] [The Delphic University.Draft] and ‘To provlima tis mousikis kai tou horou sto arhaio drama’ [1931] [The Problem of



Music and the Chorus in Ancient Drama] in Sikelianos Pezos logos, B, 146–8, 309–21.Sikelianos treated the Greek dances as being superior to the dances of other peoples, such as theMexicans or Cambodians, because the latter ‘only express unconscious ecstasy’ whilst theGreek ‘expresses a morally instinctive and conscious convention’ which conceals ‘a deepApollonian competition’. The archetypical form of this competition, in Sikelianos’ view, wasfound in the dramatic Greek dance of Python with Apollo, as an inherent struggle betweenDoric and Dionysian music. This dance was presented by the Kanellos couple at the firstDelphic Festival.

[69] See Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 153–62, 171–4, 181–90, 65–66. Gabriel Boissy, studentof Josephin Peladan and old acquaintance of Eva, who had organized outdoor theatreperformances, attended the Delphic Festival in 1927. The French scholar then discerned therelationship clearly: ‘Through time and space, one can see in this triumphant revival ofPrometheus Bound at Delphi the logical continuity of all previous attempts’. Amongst others,he refers to Wagner, Nietzsche, Edouard Schure and Josephin Peladan (‘O PromitheusDesmotis epi tou vrahou ton Delfon’ [Prometheus Bound on the Rock at Delphi], Proıa, 29May 1927). Angelos Sikelianos also supported the ‘Teutonic’ theorists in the matter of therevival, both before and after the Delphic Festivals. See his article ‘Ya ti didaskalia tis arhaiastragodias’ [1937] [On the Teaching of Ancient Tragedy] in Sikelianos Pezos logos, C, 127–8 aswell as Papadaki, L’Interpretation de l’antiquite en Grece moderne, 158, Papadaki, ‘I moda tisanaviosis toy ypaithriou theatrou kai I Delphiki prospatheia’, 120.

[70] We know from her letter to Natalie Clifford Barney that on a short trip to America in 1905she had a failed attempt to stage amateur performances of Swinburne’s tragedy Atalanta inCalydon (1865), where she had placed particular emphasis on the chorus (Palmer-Sikelianos,Upward Panic, 105–6, Papadaki, Grammata tis Evas Palmer-Sikelianou sti Natalie CliffordBarney, 234–5).

[71] Papadaki, L’Interpretation de l’antiquite en Grece moderne, and ‘I moda tis anaviosis toyypaithriou’, 114–5.

[72] For an introduction to the topic, see Cumming & Kaplan, The Arts and Crafts Movement,102–3 and Coatts, A Weaver’s Life, passim.

[73] For the ideological relationships between the Delphic idea and K. Karavidas, see Papadaki,L’Interpretation de l’antiquite en Grece moderne, 212. On Karavidas’ fascist theories seeHadziiossif, I giraia selini, 344–6.

[74] Sikelianos, Pezos logos, vol. II, 163–73. Angelos Sikelianos claimed that the country’s crisiscommenced after the destruction of the Greek communities by the Bavarians of King Otto inthe middle of nineteenth century; since ‘then Greece is the spoils of all the mistakes ofModern Greek parliamentarianism’. He promoted the idea of reviving interest in‘communalism’ after the establishment of a group (‘phalanx’) of ‘studious and determinedyouth’ who, in free translation, ‘overcoming all the apprehensions of contemporary passiveGreek youth and of the academic mentality, would shake from off her the rags of hesitancy’.This new generation must fulfil its highest mission ‘not only as Greeks, but as a universalRace’ based on combined will. In his article ‘The Intellectual Basis of the Delphic Endeavour’(67–118), referring to researchers such as Werner Sombart, he praised the Aryan mentalityand bravery against Semitic ideology, capitalism, the bourgeoisie and even Lenin, who‘jumped into the saddle of the scrawny Semitic theory of Marx’ (89–91); but even in 1936,Sikelianos contacted the ‘4 August’ regime, asking it to preserve the Delphic Idea since, hebelieved, ‘it contains the heart of the genuine Doric essence: Intellectual prowess!’ (413–29).

[75] See Kremmydas, ‘O ideologikos kosmos toy Angeloy Sikelianoy’, 16–17. For the Anti-Enlightenment tradition, see Sternhell, Les anti-Lumieres, passim. For the ideologicalconnection to the views of Sombart and Action francaise, see Papadaki, L’Interpretation del’antiquite en Grece moderne, 112, 145. Of course, in any case, Angelos Sikelianos’

2114 A. Glytzouris


relationship with the abovementioned reactionary ideologies should not lead us to stigmatizehim as a Modern Greek advocate of fascistic ideological behaviour. As mentioned by NikosSvoronos, whilst Sikelianos developed his ideological views within ‘a complex of ideas whichbecame, rightfully or not, the ideology of the European fascists’ for specific historical reasonsSikelianos was not led ‘down the same path’ (Svoronos, ‘Protaseis gia ti meleti tis ideologiastoy Sikelianou’, 429–30). On the other hand, one cannot ignore either his undisguisedantiparliamentarianism nor the influences of Saint-Yves d’ Alveydre, Joseph de Maistre,Charles Maurras, Arthur de Gobineau, H. S. Chamberlain, etc. In short, the whole questionrequires neither accusations nor silencing. It simply requires investigation.

[76] Palmer-Sikelianos’ initial wish was to present Prometheus in ancient Greek language.However, she was persuaded to perform the Gryparis translation primarily because Angeloswanted ‘to establish the fact that Greek is not a dead, but a living language’ (Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 108). Note too that the performance of Electra in Paris (1911) hadbeen in the original ancient Greek (see notes 10 and 55).

[77] It is no coincidence that one of the defenders of the Delphic Idea and the views of Duncan onGreek dance was Demosthenes Danielides, who adopted a geopolitical conception ofModern Greek society. See Danielides, ‘Sti mnimi tis Evas Sikelianou’, 16–7 and Papadaki,L’Interpretation de l’antiquite en Grece moderne, 211, Tziovas, Oi metamorphoseis touethnismou, 75–9, Hadziiossif, I giraia selini, 346.

[78] Illustrative of the international appeal of the Delphic endeavour were the papers presented byPalmer-Sikelanos at international conferences such as the 29th Colloquium of the AmericanArchaeological Society at the University of Cincinnati (see American Journal of Archaeology,2nd series, 1928, XXXII, 1, 63) and the publication of her views in famous art journals of thetime (see ‘A Lecture on the Greek Tragic Chorus’, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,XXII, 11 Nov. 1927, 282). See too the appreciative comments made by Bieber in hermonumental work (Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater, 261–2).

[79] Duncan, My Life, 118–9.[80] For Von Oftendhal see Akropolis, 3, 4 Nov. 1905 and 5 Feb. 1906. For Alden see Veinoglou,

‘O Chimairokynigos toy Mississippi’, 843–50. At this point it is important to mention thepraise from the unknown to us Fellow of the American Archaeological Society for the musicwritten by Sakellarides for Mistriotis’ production of Electra (Sideris 1976: 136–9).

[81] This important in the history of American theatre couple was particularly active in Greecefrom 1921 to 1924, but a separate paper would be necessary to adequately cover theircontribution. However, it is important to note here that they were the first to envisageperformances at the ancient theatre of Delphi. Cook had written a trilogy set in AncientGreece and in 1893 where the action was interrupted by dances and songs. He planned tostage these works with villagers and the Roumeli shepherd, Elias Skarmouches, as the leadactor at the ancient theatre of Delphi. On Cook’s career in America see Sarlos 1982. For theAmerican couple’s activities in Greece see Glaspell, ‘Last Days in Greece’, 31–49, Glaspell,The Road to the Temple, Cook, My Road to India and Gainor, Susan Glaspell in Context.

[82] Cook spent the last years of his life wearing a fustanella along with the shepherds and villagers onMount Parnassus. At the same time he had developed a circle of admirers comprising Athenianstudents (such as I. Sykoutres, I. Kakrides, K. Dimaras, Ang. Kalogeras, L. Pararas and others).See Eleftheron Vima, 20 Jan. 1924, Vas. El[iades?], ‘Susan Glaspell’, Eleftheron Vima, 13 May1930, Veinoglou, ‘O Chimairokynigos toy Mississippi’, 1093–1104, Pararas, ‘Ioannis AntiphonSykoutris, 144, ‘Angelos Sikelianos kai I Delphiki idea’, 1678–9. A book by Cook dedicated toPalmer-Sikelianos can be found in the Sikelianos library, see Papadaki, ‘Ta evrethenta tisvivliothikis ton Delphon toy Aggelou kai tis Evas Sikelianou’, entry 296 and Papadaki,L’Interpretation de l’antiquite en Grece moderne, 104. Certain Delphic events were dedicated toCook while his daughter, Nilla Cook-Proestopoulos was a member of the chorus of Oceanides.



[83] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 59–60, 67–8, 87–92.[84] Ibid., 75–6.[85] Danielides, ‘Sti mnimi tis Evas Sikelianou’, 16–17.[86] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 76.[87] Ibid., 59.[88] Ibid., 88.[89] Eva Sikelianos, ‘Introduction to Prometheus’, Vradyni, 11 and 12 Jan. 1925. Tsarouchis’

memory of the matter is similar. ‘One day, listening to the village girls sing the chorus fromPrometheus which they had learned by secretly watching the rehearsals in the theatre, [Eva]said, ‘‘the next time I won’t take Athens society girls for the chorus, but villagers from here.They are better’’’ (‘Tha borousa na grapso selides ateleiotes gia tin Eva Sikelianou’, 234).Pratsika mentions the same incident in her interview for Lakis Papastathis’ televisiondocumentary Paraskinio (‘I anaviosi tou arhaiou dramatos’ [The Revival of Ancient Drama],Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, 1998). In any event, the society columns in the newspapersof the time stressed the class background of the girls in the line-up of the Oceanides andDanaides choruses: ‘they are all the very top girls, beautiful, educated and from good families’(Vradyni, 26 April 1927).

[90] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 131–2.[91] See, for example, Hadjinicolaou, Ethiniki tehni kai protoporia, 36, 45 and on theatre,

Glytzouris, I skinothetiki tehni stin Ellada, 517–33.[92] To be sure, she stressed the ‘satisfaction’ a Modern Greek ought to feel in relation to

foreigners. He/She felt obliged to call out: ‘Look gentlemen, we kept ancient music aliveacross all those centuries’ (Palmer-Sikelianos, Treis dialexeis, 69–71).

[93] Edward Gordon Craig, ‘The Art of the Theatre. The First Dialogue’ (1905) in Walton, Craigon Theatre, 53. On Mallarme’s views on dance see, for example, Block, Mallarme and theSymbolist Drama, 93–6.

[94] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 98–99. Twenty-nine titles were counted in the Sikelianoslibrary relating to Indian culture (Papadaki, ‘Ta evrethenta tis vivliothikis ton Delphon toyAggelou kai tis Evas Sikelianou’). The letter of 6 September 1926 to Raftopoulou who wasthen living in Paris (Merlier Archive) informs us that Eva Sikelianos was a member of theassociation of Indian students in the French capital since 1924. In that letter, Sikelianos askedher associate to find an Indian singer and someone who spoke Hindi because she wanted totranslate a guide about the celebrations to ‘make them better known in India in order toshow the ancient relationship between India and Greece. And that the impact on musicalsounds, customs and mores, etc. had been preserved to this very day’. It should be noted thatin Indian dance, the actor (following a completely different set of artistic conventions) iscalled up to express himself using very specific, and strictly coded movements, stances andgestures which create a parallel language of signs as complex as speech. The truth is, however,that any further correlation must be considered rather risky. There is no evidence to showthat Palmer-Sikelianos correlated the ancient Greek dance with Indian dance, despite theundisputed charm that traditional India exerted on her. For new valuable evidence andcomprehensive approach, see the recent article of Leontis ‘An American in Paris, a Parsi inAthens’, 351–73.

[95] Eva Sikelianos , ‘Introduction to Prometheus’, Vradyni, 12 Jan. 1925.[96] O Theatis, 4, 14 February 1925.[97] Sikelianos, Pezos logos, E, 103–13.[98] Palmer-Sikelianos, Upward Panic, 137.[99] Perhaps a comparison with the ideals of sporting amateurism in Greece and the Olympic

movement of the time would be also appropriate, See Koulouri Athlitismos kai opseis tisastikis koinonikotitas and her contribution to the present volume.

2116 A. Glytzouris


[100] ‘The audience included not just academics but well-known Athenian families. In fact, all thecream of Athenian society had relocated to Delphi’ (Proıa, 13 May 1930).

[101] Bouketo, 29 May 1930, 531, 23 Oct. 1930, 1053, S. Petras, Vradyni, 2 May 1930.[102] Vradyni, 4 May 1930.

References

Bieber, Margaret. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress, 1961.

Block, Haskell M. Mallarme and the Symbolist Drama. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.Bobou-Protopapa, Eleni. To Lykeion ton Ellinidon, 1911–1991 [The Lyceum of Greek Women,

1911–1991]. Athens: Lykeion ton Ellinidon, 1993.Coatts, Margot. A Weaver’s Life: Ethel Mairet 1872–1953. London: Crafts Council, 1983.Cram Cook, Nilla. My Road to India. New York: Lee Furman, 1939.Cumming, Elizabeth, and Kaplan Wendy. The Arts and Crafts Movement. London: Thames &

Hudson, World of Art Series, 1995.Daly, Ann. ‘Isadora Duncan’s Dance Theory’. Dance Research Journal 26, no. 2 (1994): 24–31.Daly, Ann. Done into Dance; Isadora Duncan in America. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan

University Press, 1995.Danielides, Demosthenes. ‘Sti mnimi tis Evas Sikelianou’ [In Memory of Eva Sikelianos].

Kainourgia Epohi Summer (1957): 11–22.Dragoumis, M. F. ‘Konstantinos A. Psachos’. Laografia XXIX (1974): 311–22.Duncan, Isadora. My Life. New York: Liveright Publishing Company/Award Books, 1966.Duncan, Doree, Carol Pratl, and Cynthia Platt, eds. Life Into Art. Isadora Duncan and Her World.

New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1993.Fournaraki, Eleni. ‘Apo ti gymnastiki sto horo: gynaikeios somatikos politismos, apo tin Enosi ton

Ellinidon sto Lykeio ton Ellinidon’ [From Physical Education to Dance: Female BodilyCulture from the Union of Greek Women to the Lyceum of Greek Women]. In EkatoChronia Lykeion ton Ellinidon 1911–2011 [A Hundred Years of Lyceum of Greek Women1911–2011]. Athens: Politistiko Idryma Omilou Piraios, 2010 (in press).

Gainor, Ellen J. Susan Glaspell in Context: American Theatre, Culture and Politics, 1915–1948. AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001.

Glaspell, Susan. ‘Last Days in Greece’. In Greek Coins, edited by George C. Cook. New York: GeorgeH. Doran Company, 1925:31–49.

Glaspell, Susan. The Road to the Temple: A Biography of George Cram Cook. Jefferson, NC:McFarland, 2005.

Glytzouris, Antonis. ‘Delfikes Yortes (1927–1930): I anaviosi toy arhaioellinikoy horoy stonPromithea Desmoti kai stis Iketides toy Aescylou’ [The Delphic Festivals (1927–1930): TheRevival of the Ancient Greek Chorus in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and the SuppliantWomen]. Ta Istorika XV 28/29 (1998): 147–70.

Glytzouris, Antonis. I skinothetiki tehni stin Ellada. H anadysi kai I edraiosi toy skinotheti stoneoelliniko theatro [The Art of Directing in Greece. The Emergence and Establishment of theDirector in Modern Greek Theatre]. Athens: Ellinika Grammata Press, 2001.

Glytzouris, Antonis. ‘Eva Palmer-Sikelianou kai Antonis Fokas: I kosmiki erasitehnia, oAisthitismos kai oi aparhes tis endymatologias sto neoelliniko theatro’ [Eva Palmer-Sikelianos and Antonis Fokas: Society Amateurism, Aestheticism and the Beginnings ofCostume Design in Modern Greek Theatre’. In Elliniki skinografia – endymatologia [GreekSet and Costume Design], edited by Agni Mouzenidou. Athens: University of Athens, 2002:128–42.



Glytzouris, Antonis. ‘I kinimatografiki eikona os pigi tis istorias toy neoellinikoy theatroy’ [TheCinema Image as a Source of History of the Modern Greek Inter-war Theatre]’. Ta IstorikaXXVI 48 (June 2008): 139–56.

Glytzouris, Antonis. ‘Parakmi, mystikismos kai oi nekrofaneies tis ellinikis ratsas. O Asklepios toyAngelou Sikelianou’ [Decadence, Mysticism and the Apparent Death of the Greek Race.Angelos Sikelianos’ Asclepius]. In Mysticism and Art. From the Theosophism of 1900 to the‘New Age’: Outbreaks and Survival. Athens: Modern Greek Culture and General EducationStudies Society/Founder: Moraitis School, 2010 (in press).

Hadjinicolaou, Nikos. Ethniki tehni kai protoporia [National Art and Avant-Garde]. Athens:Ochima Press, 1982.

Hadziiossif, Christos. I giraia selini. I viomihania stin Ellada 1830–1940 [The Old Moon. Industry inGreece 1830–1940]. Athens: Themelio Press, 1993.

Hadzipantazis, Thodoros. I athinaiki epitheorisi [The Athenian Revue]. Athens: Ermis Press, 1977.Hasioti, Natassa. ‘Politiki kai koinoniki diastasi tis shesis horou kai theatrou apo ton

Mesopolemo mehri ta prota Metemfyliaka hronia’ [The Political and Social Dimension ofthe Relationship Between Dance and Theatre From the Inter-war Years to the First YearsAfter the Civil War]. In Tradition and Modernization in Modern Greek Theatre: From theBeginnings to the Post-war Period. Proceedings of the 3rd Pan-Hellenic Theatre StudiesConference, edited by Antonis Glytzouris – Constantina Georgiadis. Heraklion: Universityof Crete Press, 2010: 509–20.

Kakouri, Katerina. ‘Oi Delfikes Yortes’ [The Delphic Festivals]. Nea Estia 110 (1981): 865–72.Kanellos, Vassos. I arhaia elliniki orchesis kai I Isadora Dougkan [Ancient Greek Dance and Isadora

Duncan]. Athens: 1966.Koulouri, Hristina. Athlitismos kai opseis tis astikis koinonikotitas [Sport and Aspects of Bourgeoise

Society]. Athens: E.I.E., 1997.Kremmydas, Vasilis. ‘O ideologikos kosmos toy Angeloy Sikelianou’ [The Ideological World of

Angelos Sikelianos]. O Politis 97 (2002): 13–18.Kyriakidou-Nestoros, Aliki. I theoria tis ellinikis laografias [The Theory of Greek Folklore]. Athens:

Modern Greek Culture and General Education Studies Society / Founder: Moraitis School,1997.

Lambrinos, Fotos. ‘I kinimatographisi ton Delfikon Yorton’ [Filming the Delphic Festivals].Ta Istorika XIV, 36 (1997): 135–44.

Leontis, Artemis. ‘‘Mediterranean Theoria’: A View from Delphi’. Thesis Eleven 67 (2001): 101–17.Leontis, Artemis. ‘An American in Paris, a Parsi in Athens’. In A Singular Antiquity. Archaeology

and Hellenic Identity in Twentieth-Century Greece, edited by Dimitri Damaskos and DimitrisPlantzos. Athens: Benaki Museum, 3rd Supplement, 2008:359–73.

Margariti, Elli. ‘Delphikes Yortes’ [The Delphic Festivals]. Tachydromos 29 (1983).Mavrommatis, Emmanouil. Bella Raftopoulou. Elefthera shedia apo ellinika ageia gia tis Delphikes

Yortes [Bella Raftopoulou. Free-hand Sketches of Greek Pottery for the Delphic Festivals1925–1927]. Athens: Cosmo Press, 1983.

Palmer-Sikelianos, Eva. ‘I Ellas odigitis tis Anthropotitos. Delphikes Yortes. To epigeion oneironenos poiitou’ [Greece as a Leader of Humanity. Delphic Festival. The Earthly Vision of aPoet], I Kyriaki tou Eleftherou Vimatos no. 6, 16 January 1927.

Palmer-Sikelianos, Eva. ‘Ti einai megalo theatro’. Philologiki Protochronia (1949), 39–46. Originallypublished as a leaflet under the title: What is Great Theatre? A Gift to the Greek War Relief(1940, 24p.), and then republished in The National Herald, 19 January 1947.

Palmer-Sikelianos, Eva. ‘I tragodia kata Sikelianon’, [Tragedy according to Sikelianos] [1928/9?].Theatro 11 (1963): 67–68.

Palmer-Sikelianos, Eva. Upward Panic. The Autobiography of Eva Palmer-Sikelianos, edited by JohnP. Anton. Harwood Academic Publishers, Choreography and Dance Studies 4, 1993.

2118 A. Glytzouris


Palmer-Sikelianos, Eva. Epistoles tis Evas Palmer-Sikelianou gia to arhaio drama [Letters of EvaPalmer-Sikelianos on Ancient Drama]. Athens: European Culture Centre of Delphi – ‘NeaSynora’ Livanis Press, 1997.

Palmer-Sikelianos, Eva. Treis dialexeis [Three Lectures]. Athens: Estia Press, 1921 (edited recentlyby Ritsa Frangou-Kikilia as Oraia mataioponia [Beautiful Futility]. Treis dialexeis, Athens:2005).

Papadaki, Lia. Grammata tis Evas Palmer-Sikelianou sti Natalie Clifford Barney [Letters of EvaPalmer Sikelianos to Natalie Clifford Barney]. Athens: Kastaniotis, 1995.

Papadaki, Lia. ‘Ta evrethenta tis vivliothikis ton Delphon toy Aggelou kai tis Evas Sikelianou’ [ItemsFound in the Delphic Library of Angelos and Eva Sikelianos]. Lefkada Studies Society VIII(1995): 333–406.

Papadaki, Lia. To ephiviko protypo kai I delphiki prospatheia toy Angelou Sikelianou [TheEphebic Model and Angelo Sikelianos’ Delphic Endeavour]. Athens: IAEN – KNE / E.I.E, 1995.

Papadaki, Lia. ‘I moda tis anaviosis toy ypaithriou theatrou kai I Delphiki prospatheia’ [TheFashion for Reviving Outdoor Theatre Performances and the Delphic Endeavour]. In OSikelianos kai to theatro [Sikelianos and Theatre], edited by K. Petrakou – A. Mouzenidou.Athens: Ellinika Grammata Press, Athens, 2003: 111–26.

Papadaki, Efthalie [Lia]. L’Interpretation de l’antiquite en Grece moderne: le cas de Anghelos et EvaSikelianos, (1900–1952). Paris: These de Doctorat de l’Universite de Paris I, 1998.

Pararas, Lambros. ‘Ioannis Antiphon Sykoutris. Ta foititika hronia’ [Ioannis Antiphon Sykoutris.The Student Years]. Nea Poreia 38–39 (1958): 136–44.

Pararas, Lambros. ‘Angelos Sikelianos kai I Delphiki idea’. Nea Estia 849 (1962): 1678–79.Politis, Photos. Epilogi kritikon arthron [Selection of Review Articles], vol. III. Athens: Ikaros Press,

1983.Pratsika, Koula. ‘Anamniseis apo tis protes Delphices Yortes toy 1927’ [Memoirs from the First

Delphic Festivals of 1927]. Ios 98–102 (1966): 126–31.Puchner, Walter. ‘I Isadora Duncan kai o ellinikos horos’ [Isadora Duncan and the Greek Dance].

In Grafes kai Simiomata. Athens: Ergo Press, 2005: 87–92.Sarlos, Robert Karoly. Jig Cook and the Provincetown Players. Theatre in Ferment. Amherst, MA: The

University of Massachusetts Press, 1982.Sideris, Yannis. ‘Kosmiki erasitehnia kai theatro’ [Society Amateurism and Theatre]. Theatro I, 5

(1962): 37–38.Sideris, Yannis. To arhaio elliniko theatro sti nea elliniki skini, 1818–1932 [Ancient Greek Theatre on

the Modern Greek Stage, 1818–1932]. Athens: Ikaros Press, 1976.Sikelianos, Angelos. Pezos logos [Prose], Vol. I–V. Athens: Ikaros Press, 1980–1985.Sternhell, Zeev. Les anti-Lumieres: du XVIIIe siecle a la guerre froide. Paris: Fayard, coll. L’espace du

politique, 2006.Svoronos, Nikos. ‘Protaseis gia ti meleti tis ideologias toy Sikelianou’ [Suggestions on the Study of

Sikelianos’ Ideology]. In Analekta Neoellinikis Istorias kai Istoriographias [Selected Extractsfrom Modern Greek History and Historiography]. Athens: Themelio Press, 1987: 413–32[first published in Nea Estia 110 (1981): 1590–1599].

Thrylos, Alkis. To neoelliniko theatro [Modern Greek Theatre] Vol. I., 1927–1933. Athens: AthensAcademy. Kostas and Eleni Ouranis Foundation, 1977.

Tsarouchis, Yannis. ‘Tha borousa na grapso selides ateleiotes gia tin Eva Sikelianou’ [I Could WriteCountless Pages about Eva Sikelianos]. Ios 103–107 (1967): 232–5.

Tziovas, Dimitris. Oi metamorphoseis tou ethnismou kai to ideologima tis ellinikotitas stonMesopolemo [The Transformations of Nationalism and the Idea of Greekness in the Inter-warPeriod]. Athens: Odysseus Press, 1989.

Veinoglou, Al. ‘O Chimairokynigos toy Mississippi – George Cram Cook’ [The MississippiDaydreamer – George Cram Cook]. Nea Estia 68 (1929): 843–50 – 72 (1929): 1093–104.



Veloudios, Thanos. ‘Epitideigmi Pyrrihiou eis 9/8 ı Artozinos diladi Zeimbekikos’ [Skilful PyrrhicDance in 9/8 Rhythm or the Artozinos folk dance, i.e. the Zeimbekikos folk dance]. Ios 98–102 (1966): 116–25.

Walton, Michael J., ed. Craig on Theatre. London: Methuen, 1991.Webster, T. B. L. The Greek Chorus. London: Methuen & CO Ltd, 1970.Yofillis, Photos. ‘I Ellas odigitis tis Anthropotitos. Delphikes Yortes. To epigeion oneiron enos

poiitou’ [Greece as a Leader of Humanity. Delphic Festival. The Earthly Vision of a Poet],I Kyriaki tou Eleftherou Vimatos no. 6, 16 January 1927.

2120 A. Glytzouris


Glytzouris

Documents

Transcript of Glytzouris