To Dance in the Orchestra: A Circular Argument

Abstract

The word orchestra first appears in extant literary sources of the 4th century BCE and begins to identify a specific element of theatre building only in the mid 4th century. Recent archaeological evidence demonstrates that a rounded or circular dancing space was first introduced to theatres in the mid 4th century, replacing the rectilinear dancing spaces of theatres up to this point. This paper suggests that these two innovations are related: the word orchestra came into use to identify circular orchestrai that were built in the course of the 4th century. It would, therefore, be useful to distinguish the rectilinear dancing places of 5th-century theatres from the later circular orchestra by using a different term (perhaps khoros). The paper concludes that literary sources support archaeological evidence that the theatron, not the orchestra, was the primary element of the theatre building. Although the religious and political functions of ancient theatres are by no means mutually exclusive, scholarly derivation of drama from poetry, choral lyric or early religious ritual sometimes marginalizes the history of the building’s political utility. 1 In particular, architectural histories of theatres used to trace the origin of the building to a circular dancing ground, of religious and cult significance, as the forerunner of the theatre’s orchestra. However, archaeological excavations and reevaluations of old sites have shown that it is much more likely that the earliest theatres (6th through 5th centuries) were not semicircular, but rectilinear, and, more importantly, that