334 drama and theater: Greece ductions and that two or more actors performed the speaking parts, perhaps with a narrator delivering the narrative parts of the drama A chorus wearing animal masks may have added to the production These plays were probably performed in temples or other sacred places, perhaps at yearly festivals Some scholars see the Skírnismál and other ritual dramas as helping communities deal with the overwhelming forces of nature For the participants ritual drama and performance would have reinforced community taboos, helped ensure a successful harvest, provided support in the cold and snow of winter, and celebrated the return of spring In short, such performances were a kind of religious ritual to enact humans’ relationship with the gods Dance, too, had a theatrical function The best way historians have of studying dance from the ancient world is through pottery and artwork that depicts people dancing It is likely that the earliest forms of dance were spontaneous celebrations of a successful hunt or marked other important occasions in the life of the community Later more formalized dances appeared, as pictured, for example, on pottery from Romania dating to 4000–3000 b.c.e In most cases these depictions show line or circle dances Interestingly, in the Balkans one village dance event was called the Hora, and it still takes place in the region on Sundays Dance may also have helped to induce trancelike states in religious rituals GREECE BY J OHN THORBURN The ancient Greeks enjoyed several kinds of dramatic entertainment, including tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays How, why, and when such performances began is uncertain, but by the fift h century b.c.e they were well established Our knowledge of Greek drama comes primarily from about four dozen plays by five Athenian playwrights: the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and the comic poets Aristophanes and Menander Greek dramas had a religious element and honored Dionysus, best known as the god of wine, and performing plays apparently evolved from some aspect of his worship Besides their religious aspect, ancient theatrical performances often occurred as part of a competition In Athens the two festivals with dramatic competitions were the Lenaia and the far larger and more important City Dionysia At the Lenaia two tragedians, each staging two plays, competed, and two comic poets were judged based on a single play each At the City Dionysia three tragic poets each put on three tragedies and a satyr play, whereas five comic poets each put on a single play The Greeks viewed performances outdoors and during the day In the earliest times spectators might sit on the bare ground of a hillside or on temporary wooden bleachers By the fourth century b.c.e theaters built of stone were commonplace They varied in size, but the Theater of Dionysus in Athens seated well over 10,000 spectators The action of The figure of Silenus, the mentor of Dionysus, the god of plays; the figure was placed at the front of the stage in the Theater of Dionysus, sitting at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens (Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, American School of Classical Studies at Athens) the plays occurred both on a rectangular stage and in front of it within the circular orchestra (literally “place for dancing”) At the rear of the stage stood a buildinglike structure, the skene, with one to three doors The skene might represent a house, palace, military tent, or even a cave Because the actors performed only in front of the skene, playwrights usually had to use a character to describe events that were supposedly occurring inside Occasionally, though, dramatists used a wheeled platform to bring something or someone out from within the skene Sometimes characters (especially divinities) appeared on the roof of the skene or were suspended above the stage by means of a crane called the mechane Over time stages became more elevated and deeper, and the skene increased from one to two stories Music from a pipe player accompanied dramas, and the performers—all of whom were men—took roles as individual characters or members of the chorus The Greek word choros means “dance,” and besides speaking, chanting, or singing their lines, the chorus members also danced Comedies had 24 chorus members; early tragedies and satyr plays had 12,