Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 11-05-2008, 09:15 AM

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The Arrival of the Chorus

Jesus was standing in the grove at the left side of the stage, admonishing his disciples for the third time, when suddenly there appeared

a large multitude with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests, the scribes and the elders.

These words of Matthew closely agree with the account given by Mark. Luke records the arrival of the armed crowd in excited tones, suggesting that the entry of the chorus came as a surprise to the Christian audience:

He was still speaking, when, behold a crowd!
And Judas, one of the twelve was leading them!

Luke precipitously names the chorus leader, though the audience was to learn his identity only later, during Jesus’ first exchange with the armed men. The startling effect of the parodos, the entry of the chorus in an ancient dramatic performace, was increased by a special stage effect, mentioned by John: the men he describes as soldiers and temple guards came carrying lanterns and torches. Ancient playwrights made frequent use of scenes with torches in order to call attention to a particular area of the stage, an effect that in our theater we achieve by the use of spotlights. In the ancient theater, which was open to the sky, there was no means of creating darkness artificially on the stage. If the performance was taking place in broad daylight, the idea of darkness could be conveyed to the audience by the use of torches. Seneca had the chorus of armed men carry lanterns and torches to indicate that the arrest took place before dawn, under the cover of darkness. The first appearance of the chorus in an ancient play was a most important moment in terms of the dramatic action. All that took place prior to the arrival of the chorus on the stage was not an integral part of the tragic plot, but rather a preparation for it. The song of the chorus as it marched onto the stage marked the beginning of the first act. In an ancient play the arrival of the chorus served a function similar to the raising of the curtain in a modern theater. The chorus was composed of about twelve singers who were also dancers.[1] They usually arrived onto the stage reciting a song in which they identified themselves and their place of origin. In a tragedy the chorus was always identified by the community to which its members belonged, because originally the chorus spoke for the conscience of the community. When the chorus was composed of people who came from a community different from that of the scene, they identified themselves upon entering the stage by using a formula such as We have come from... For instance, on Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis the chorus enters reciting: I have come to the shore
And the sea sands of Aulis
Over Euripus’ waters
And the sea narrows sailing
From Chalcis, my city
In Seneca’s Hercules on Oeta the entry song recited together by Iole and the chorus of Thessalian women, who had been brought as prize of war with her, is not so direct, but it contains the lines: It will be asked
where was the location of my fatherland.
Happy I inhabited Thessaly
When the hearths were not barren.
It is characteristic of Seneca to be less blunt than is usual in Greek tragedy. In the present instance the chorus must have included the information that they were soldiers and temple guards who had come from Jerusalem, being under the orders of the High Priest to find Jesus and arrest him. To indicate that they were coming from Jerusalem, they entered from the right, the direction of the city. Thus in order to approach Jesus and the disciples, the chorus had to walk across the stage from right to left; as they did so they became fully visible to the audience.

http://www.nazarenus.com/0-6-chorusarrives.htm

Are we looking at in the Gospels, Acts and Revelation reports of plays?

Clivedurdle · 11-05-2008, 01:42 PM

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Thursday, June 01, 2006

Hominids' cave rave-ups may link music and speech

There's an unwritten law that states no piece of writing should ever begin with the words "It was a dark and stormy night...", and although in this instance the night referred to was a strictly Neanderthal affair, dating back some 50,000 years, it's probable they had a similar rule for the opening lines of stories related amongst themselves. Laughing in the face of literary tradition, this line illustrates an image of a noisy group of Neanderthals, standing and sitting around in a cave, whilst tapping and bashing out rhythm and melody on the rocks around them, in an apparent attempt to pass the time.

In this belated review of Steven Mithen's 'The Singing Neanderthals', we are given the basic premise of the book, which holds that Neanderthals did not have a word-based spoken language such as we use today, but instead employed a form of communication dubbed "HMMMMM" -- standing for "holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical and mimetic." - which according to author Steven Mithen, means that Neanderthals used a mixture of musical phrases and body language to convey their messages back and forth to one another.

From these early roots, Mithen contends that our modern passion for music was implanted, to such an extent that we appear to be hard-wired for both listening to and composing music - indeed, it is almost unheard of for anyone to claim they don't like music in any of its forms.

Despite extensive research into a range of subjects, from the human brain, fossil remains and the musical and linguistic abilities of brain-damaged people, Mithen admits that his imagination also had a great part as he sought proof of his theories. In this respect, Mithen should be praised for his creative thnking and bringing it to bear on one of the least understood species of human, those famous Neanderthals, although in my opinion, the origins and use of music could easily reach back as far as Homo erectus, between 1 and 2 million years.

Mithen argues for music as having become embedded in our collective psyche, passed down though the ages, in the manner of a meme, but it may yet transpire that some aspect of our physical and mental configuration is pre-selected to code for musical stimuli, potentially meaning each one of us is wearing our own pair of quantum Red Shoes.

http://remotecentral.blogspot.com/20...ink-music.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/sundayfe...html?select=02

Quote:

The urge to make music is rooted deep in human nature. But why that urge arose in the first place is a hotly debated question, which divides the scientific community. Is music a useless by-product of evolution, as renowned cognitive scientist Steven Pinker says? Or is it a vitally important faculty that helped humanity to flourish, as archeologist Steven Mithen and many others believe?

Ivan Hewett goes in search of the answer, drawing on a fascinating body of evidence that ranges from Paleolithic cave settlements and observations of apes making music, to laboratory studies of infants’ musical abilities, and a new brain-scanning experiment to map the neural basis of the music faculty.

My ancient copy of the New English Bible changes the text layout at various points when a hymn is being quoted.

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