The Great Festival

A Theoretical Performance Narrative of Antiquity’s Feasts and the Modern Rock Festival

Olav Harsløf

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000051599
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

The Great Festival presents and analyzes two historical festivals - the ancient Dionysus Festival and the present Roskilde Festival. The purpose is to set up two comparable structures or 'codes' to explain the universal artistic effects, structures and fascination of the festival.

Olav Harsløf argues that there are major structural, organizational and economic similarities which, when exposed, can give us greater insight into today's festivals. This is illuminated through a combined performance design and event analysis of the ancient Dionysus festival and today's Roskilde Festival, explaining the festival's historicity, diversity, complexity and paradigmatic strength.

This will be a discussion of great interest to researchers and students in the fields of performance studies, experience economy, theater, music, classical philology and archeology.

1 In the beginning was the agora

New research

Antiquity research has stormed forward in the last 30 years. Philologists and archeologists, as well as music, culture, art, and performance researchers have all more or less turned earlier perceptions of classical theater and antiquity’s music and dance on its head. Contributions to this have come from all over the western world and with such speed that most perceptions of Greek classical theater (and classical Athens) must be considered outdated. Therefore, it is no longer possible in a book like this to refer to available conventional perceptions of technical, artistic, sociological, political, or economic conditions in connection to classical theatrical performances and Dionysian feasts. Today everyone who delves into these subjects must assemble their own impression of the research situation then present their own personal (documented) understanding in dialogue with the many newly minted offerings connected to the ancient Greek festival, its purpose and resources.

This is also what will happen in the following, not just because of interest and sense of duty regarding half a century of intense and engaged research, but also out of necessity. To be able to extract a structural conception of the Athenian Feast of Dionysus that can be compared with other later festivals, there has to be a historically viable and convincing source-based presentation as possible.

The stage is set – and moved

When one visits ancient Greek palaces, theaters, and sports arenas, it quickly becomes apparent that there is always an open area below, in front of, next to, or close by. Today, this space can function as a parking lot or just as an open flat area. But it is there, and it functioned clearly as an agora – a square, marketplace, meeting, or festival space (see Figure 1.1).

In Argos, it sits as a ruin below the palace, just a little bit away from the theater. In Epidaurus, it sits in front of the large theater opposite the medical/health center. The little Epidaurus theater also has an open area in front of the entrance. Below the palace in Mycenae, there is also a large square.

The agora has been the central area since the first urban society, and we still see its ruins in classical settlements. Corinth presents the clearest example, with its quite large agora and remains of shops built into the walls around the square that also included a large tribune or speaker’s podium (rostra). Above the agora and next to the medical/health center is the Apollonian temple – and a few hundred meters from there, the theater.

There has also been a tradition for researchers to put emphasis on the theater’s religious function and affiliation, yes, going as far as to consider the theater itself as monumental religious architecture. According to Rune Frederiksen this perception is based

Figure 1.1The Agora in Corinth with Apollonian temple, shops, and speaker’s podium

Source: Author’s photo

primarily on the Athenian evidence. Here the dramatic activities were connected with the worship of Dionysos during various festivals in which ta dionysia ta en astei [the Dionysian festival in the city] took place in the theatre located in the temenos (holy area/shrine) of Dionysos Eleutherios. However, Athens and a few other major poleis had separate buildings for political meetings of the people – which was quite uncommon – and a religious function and significance of theatres in such poleis may, accordingly more easily be identified or, at least postulated… .

From one point of view the theatres from the rest of the Greece can be interpreted like the theatre in Athens: they are all equipped with scene buildings, which unambiguously indicates the building’s use for dramatic activities and proves that the theatres were constructed (or rebuilt) as centres for dramatic festivals. That, of course, strongly supports the interpretation of the theatre as a religious building in general terms; but in a study like the present we cannot stop here: (1) the presence of a scene building is not at all incompatible with the well-attested use of the theatre for other types of assembly; and they may well have been more ‘important’ for the community than the dramatic festivals which only occupied the theatre a few days a year. They may even have been so important that it was the political, and not the dramatic activities, which, at some localities, had been the reason for the erection of the theatre, (2) furthermore: it is clear that the scene building was used for performance; But does that performance necessarily have to be dramatic and linked to Dionysos, and therefore religious?

(Frederiksen 2000:81)

The theater was a political, communications and entertainment facility tied to the city or the center’s actual function: defense (Mycenae, Argos, Sparta, Athens), healing (Epidaurus, Corinth), trade (Corinth, Athens), political advising and/or sports competitions (Delphi, Epidaurus) and festivals (Athens) (see Figures 1.2–1.5).

The theater was never located in the center of the buildings, and was always subordinate to the palace, the square, the sports arena, and the medical/health center. The agora was both central and multi-functional. Two modern supermarket theorists, Helen Tangires and Peter Coleman give this definition of the classic market place:

Figure 1.2The theater in Epidaurus

Source: Author’s photo

Figure 1.3The theater in Argos

Source: Author’s photo

Figure 1.4The theater in Sparta

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Figure 1.5The theater in Delphi

Source: Wikimedia Commons

A large open square reserved for all public functions. The civic center, or agora as it was known in the ancient Greek world, served as the site not only for trade and commerce but also for administration, legislative, judicial, social and religious activities. The location of markets in the agora was convenient for city dwellers, vendors bringing goods by road or water and officials responsible for overseeing the markets.

(Tangires 2008:9)

For the Greeks, trading took place in the agora. This was an open square formed as a meeting-place, often between the ruling palace and the town’s principal buildings, and was intermittently used as a market. On market days, goods were laid out on mats or on temporary stalls to allow other activities – such as voting and debate, public displays, sports and parades – to take place outside market days. The earliest trading took place at the hub of the settlement, and so established the integrated relationship between trading and the heart of civilized activity in the centre of towns.

(Coleman 2006:19)

As mentioned, we see the remains of this disposition in Athens as the agora seems to have been moved a little around the Acropolis hill. It is interesting that the theater, as an institution, is not discussed by Tangires and Coleman, but of course is contained in the categories “social and religious activities” and “public displays, sports and parades.” This is the correct assumption for the theater that we know today as “The Greek Theater.” David Wiles formulates in this manner:

It is a commonplace of theatre history that Greek drama began in the Agora, the marketplace of Athens. A dictionary compiled from unknown sources explains the Greek word for “bleachers” with reference to the wooden seats in the agora “from which they used to watch the Dionysian contests before the theatre in the sanctuary of Dionysus was built,” and relates the word “orchestra” [the stage] to a dancing place in the agora… . It is now known that the “archaic” agora was sited on the north-east slope of the Acropolis, site of the modern Plaka, and it was probably here and not in the flat classical agora [on the north side] that comedy and tragedy began.

(Wiles 2003:96)

But during the course of the first half of the 400s BCE several of the agora’s functions were divided – and moved. The tradespeople probably felt bothered by the many artistic, political and sports related activities, just as a more prestigious presentation of these functions were very much on the city-state’s leaders’ minds. For David Wiles it’s not just a question of a practical solution:

A new space for dancing and drama was hollowed out on the south slope of the Acropolis, another for political assemblies on a nearby hill called the Pnyx; the level classical agora [which was erected below the north slope] was a space for processions, courts and rites around altars, but not for large-scale drama. This fragmentation of civic space had long-term consequences for western culture.

(Wiles 2003:96–97)

And with a not to be misinterpreted graphic Wiles shows how the archaic agora “the civic hearth,” is broken up into a trade and administrative agora, a public gathering platform, as well as a playhouse in or just with Dionysus’ name (Dahl 2010:38). But even though the new, large trade agora could still make room for parades, as well as judicial and religious rituals (with a view to the obligatory Apollonian temple, erected on the closest hill), the theater was relegated to the opposite slope where it soon had a concert hall and a hospital for neighbors.

David Wiles doesn’t seem to be convinced of the existence of a round dance area (orchestra) in the agora, and with the separation of the theater from trade activities, it would come to form the stage for the newly constructed theater. His doubt is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 In the beginning was the agora
• 2 The Dionysian feast
• 3 Analysis
• 4 The Roskilde Festival
• 5 Dionysus at Roskilde
• 6 The great festival
• Bibliography
• Index