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1 results

  • Chapter 6 - Agency, Narrative, and the Dancing Girl

  • Sarah Olsen, Williams College, Massachusetts
  • Book:
    Solo Dance in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature
    Published online:
    30 November 2020
    Print publication:
    10 December 2020, pp 150-177

  • Summary

    Chapter Six focuses on the figure of the orchēstris (sympotic female dancer) in the Greek cultural and literary imagination. Since these women have received little attention as a distinct category of performer, I begin by surveying both visual and textual evidence to build up an understanding of how orchēstrides were eroticized, objectified, and largely silenced by extant Greek sources. I then argue that both Xenophon’s Symposium and Theopompus’ On the Funds Plundered from Delphi use the figure of the orchēstris to address questions about gender, social order, agency, and authority. I show that these two strikingly different texts (philosophical and historical) both hint at the unsettling power of the attractive yet unruly female dancer.