Celestial Dance
A Search for Perfection
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20457993 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Francoise Syson Carter (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1987 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 3 |
| Publication date | 1987-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Dance Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0264-2875 • E-ISSN: 1750-0095 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1290620 |
| OpenAlex | W2065946310 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 2 |
In Renaissance art and literature there are many allusions to the dance of stars and gods, as well as of angels, but the link between the pagan and Christian ideas of the celestial dance has not been explored before. In this paper I shall show how the classical idea of dancing gods was gradually Christianised by Neoplatonists and the Church Fathers and explicitly formulated by Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite as a hierarchy of angels dancing in Paradise. Through the work of Ficino the sacred dance became an important image in Renaissance art and literature. In The Divine Weeks and Works, Du Bartas explains that prior to the Creation, time did not exist. The course of time, years, days, seasons and ages is controlled by the ordered dance of the stars. He describes the ordering of the four elements as a 'holy Chaine', comparing the links of this chain to country maidens dancing around a Maypole, hand in hand, the first dancer held fast to the last 'by means of those between'.' In this dancing Chain of Being the many members of the world are held together, and order is created out of chaos. Perhaps we shall never know when the idea of the celestial dance first fired man's imagination and led him to attempt to imitate in his own dancing the ordered and harmonious movement of the heavens, which he knew controlled his life and his world. It is thought that from remote prehistoric times men performed ritualistic astronomical dances which imitated the revolutions of the stars,2 and we know that the ancient Greeks believed that the origin of dancing was divine. Hesiod, for example, begins his Theogony with an invocation to the Muses who perform their beautiful and graceful dances with delicate footsteps upon the summit of Mount Helicon. He describes how they were born of Zeus and Mnemosyne near the topmost peak of Mount Olympus, where they live and dance with the Graces and Himerus, Desire.3 An anonymous poet tells us that the goddess Polyhymnia first created dancing, and Urania disco
Art · Art history · Dance · Perfection · Theology · Visual arts · Diversity and Impact of Dance · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.35 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2009 - 2024 (16) |
| Highly cited | No |