Performing (ancient) Greek modernism

Abstract

In post-1950 Greek culture, ancient Greek drama emerged, and was canonised, as a national art form with strong aspirations to arouse international interest and to win worldwide recognition. Through the newly established international Festivals of Athens and Epidaurus, ancient Greek drama was promoted as the carrier of universal humanist values. This chapter focuses on elements of performance that marked the relationship and argues that essentially reflected shared notions and ideas that could easily be grasped by the Greek audience of the period. It presents a conceptual and perceptual performance space, in which Greek modernist music and ancient drama performances of the 1960s and 1970s met. Roland Barthes’s concept of myth provides a framework for approaching the cross-fertilisation between Greek modernist music and contemporary productions of ancient drama. Many of the ancient drama productions with incidental music by Greek modernist composers started with an atonal soundscape made by either electronic sounds or extended instrumental techniques.